WASHINGTON—President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to hold a virtual summit on Monday, people familiar with the matter said, as the two leading world economies pledge to work together on climate change but differences remain over Taiwan and other fronts.

The leaders have spoken twice since Mr. Biden took office in January, the last time in September, though the summit is expected to resemble a more formal bilateral meeting with staff involvement.

One...

WASHINGTON—President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to hold a virtual summit on Monday, people familiar with the matter said, as the two leading world economies pledge to work together on climate change but differences remain over Taiwan and other fronts.

The leaders have spoken twice since Mr. Biden took office in January, the last time in September, though the summit is expected to resemble a more formal bilateral meeting with staff involvement.

One person closely tracking the negotiations and in contact with U.S. officials said climate, trade and nuclear nonproliferation—all areas the U.S. wants to work on with Beijing—as well as Taiwan and cybersecurity are among the issues that could be discussed.

The White House has yet to formally announce a date or agenda. The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Messrs. Biden and Xi have expressed a desire to work together, and the U.S. and China just issued a surprise joint declaration to address climate change as part of talks in Glasgow, Scotland, which raises expectations for a more cooperative tone next week.

Still, the relationship has been mostly characterized by a back-and-forth on trade, security and human rights, continuing a buildup of tensions that began under former President Donald Trump. Republicans and Democrats in Congress are increasingly critical of China, adding pressure on the Biden administration.

Tensions have grown between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, with Beijing conducting dozens of recent air missions near the island. The sorties followed a series of international maritime patrols led by an aircraft carrier from the U.K. and ships from the U.S. and other nations.

The White House recently said the long-held posture of strategic ambiguity over Taiwan remains in place, after Mr. Biden made public comments about defending Taiwan against a hypothetical attack from China.

Washington is concerned about China’s continued military buildup, including the testing of a hypersonic weapon and Beijing’s plans to have more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.

China also appears to have built models with the dimensions of a U.S. aircraft carrier and other warships for military training.

Beijing, meanwhile, has seen the U.S. bolster security pacts with allies in the Indo-Pacific and forge economic bonds with Asian countries. It has bristled at U.S. condemnations of the treatment of mainly Muslim Uyghurs in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. China wants the Biden administration to remove Trump-era tariffs, but the U.S. has mostly kept them in place while saying it welcomes trade talks.

U.S. leaders hoped for an in-person meeting, perhaps on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit last month in Rome. But Mr. Xi hasn’t left China during the pandemic. The U.S. and China have squabbled over the origin of the virus and angled for prominence in global vaccine distribution.

The Justice Department removed a source of friction between Beijing and Washington in September, when it struck an agreement with Huawei Technologies Co. finance chief Meng Wanzhou to allow her to return to her home in China nearly three years after she was detained in Canada at the request of the Trump administration. The U.S. dropped bank and fraud charges against Ms. Meng after she admitted to other wrongdoing—a move that some American national security analysts criticized as too large a concession to Mr. Xi but that others said could open the path to resolving other issues between the two countries.

Beijing and Washington have been at loggerheads on issues from tech to human rights and territorial claims, but a recent global tax deal shows how the rivals can also cooperate. WSJ looks at what’s next for U.S.-China relations as the G-20 meets in Rome. Photo Composite: Sharon Shi The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

Write to Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com and Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com