Xi is on his first visit to the US in six years as Washington seeks to ease tensions with Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in the United States for his first visit in six years after US President Joe Biden said in their bilateral talks this week that his goal was to restore normal communications with Beijing, including military-to-military contacts and military.
Xi will meet Biden near San Francisco on Wednesday morning US time before attending the annual summit of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group.
The summit will be their first in-person meeting in a year and follows months of high-level meetings to prepare the ground after tensions rose between the two countries over issues including trade, human rights and the pandemic.
Before his departure, Biden said his goal was simply to improve bilateral relations.
“We are not trying to decouple from China. “We’re trying to change the relationship for the better,” Biden told reporters at the White House before leaving for San Francisco.
When asked what he hoped to gain from the meeting, he said he wanted to “return to a normal flow of correspondence; in the event of a crisis, being able to pick up the phone and talk to each other; be able to ensure that our [militaries] still have contact with each other.”
Xi waved from the door of his Air China plane before walking down the steps to meet U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, who were waiting on the tarmac.
He is on his first visit to the US since 2017, when he met then-President Donald Trump.
Supporters of Chinese President Xi Jinping gathered in front of the hotel where the Chinese delegation is staying [Carlos Barria/Reuters]China, which regularly speaks of “red lines” on issues such as the self-governing island of Taiwan it claims and its expansive claims in the South China Sea, was more cautious in its expectations for the summit.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, when asked about this week’s meeting, only mentioned “deep communication” and “important issues of world peace.”
Still, analysts said the very fact that the talks took place was significant.
“The importance of the highly anticipated meeting between President Biden and President Xi in San Francisco cannot be understated, even if the results are likely to be perfunctory,” wrote Alicia Garcia Herrero of investment banking group Natixis in an analysis ahead of the summit.
Protests expected
Crowds gathered on the way from Xi’s motorcade to the luxury hotel where the Chinese delegation is staying.
Some held signs reading “Stop the CCP,” the initials of the Chinese Communist Party. Another sign reading “Welcome, President Xi Jinping” was attached to concrete bollards.
Outside the hotel, several hundred Beijing supporters waved U.S. and Chinese flags as they waited and played the patriotic song “Ode to the Motherland” over loudspeakers.
Scuffles broke out with the few anti-Xi demonstrators present, but police quickly intervened to restore calm.
Pro- and anti-China protesters also gathered near the Moscone Center, the venue where many APEC meetings were held. Larger protests are expected near the summit site on Wednesday, including from human rights groups criticizing Xi’s policies in Tibet, Hong Kong and toward Muslim Uyghurs.
Tibetan student activists showed their opposition to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s leadership and legal record [Laure Andrillon/AFP]Xi and Biden are expected to meet at the Filoli Estate, a country house museum about 40 km (25 miles) south of San Francisco, the Associated Press news agency reported, citing three senior U.S. government officials who requested anonymity. The venue has not yet been confirmed by the White House and the Chinese government.
While economic issues are likely to be high on the meeting’s agenda, including steps to curb production of the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl, rising geopolitical tensions are likely to dominate discussions.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Biden and Xi would discuss the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza as well as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
While Washington has sought to reset relations with China, it has also signaled that this will not come at the expense of core U.S. concerns.
Biden will “not be afraid to confront where confrontation is necessary on issues where we disagree with President Xi and the People’s Republic of China,” Kirby said, using the initials for the People’s Republic of China.
President Joe Biden arrives at San Francisco International Airport for the APEC Summit on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 [Evan Vucci/AP]On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told APEC ministers that the U.S. believes in “a region where economies are free to choose their own path … where goods, ideas and people flow lawfully and freely.”
Blinken did not mention China by name, but his language echoed U.S. rhetoric in recent years, in which Washington has accused China of bullying smaller countries in the Asia-Pacific and trying to undermine what the U.S. and its allies call the ” call “rules-based” international order.