President Joe Biden arrived in the Bay Area on Tuesday afternoon for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. He was greeted at San Francisco International Airport by Gov. Gavin Newsom, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Rep. Kevin Mullin, and San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
Biden is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday for talks on trade, Taiwan and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations in the first engagement between the leaders of the world's two biggest economies in nearly a year. The meeting at Filoli Gardens in Woodside will take place on the sidelines of APEC, which is the biggest forum of international governments San Francisco has seen in nearly 80 years.
Filoli Gardens is a historic country house and museum with lavish gardens. The location for the meeting was disclosed by three senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter with security implications.
Xi arrived at San Francisco International Airport about 90 minutes after Biden touched down. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and California's governor and first partner were some of the officials who greeted Xi at the airport.
Biden said Tuesday shortly before departing for San Francisco to meet Xi and attend APEC that the nations must get "on a normal course corresponding" once again even as they have sharp differences on no shortage of issues.
“Being able to pick up the phone and talk to one another if there’s a crisis. Being able to make sure our militaries still have contact with one another,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “We’re not trying to decouple from China, but what we’re trying to do is change the relationship for the better.”
The long complicated U.S.-Chinese relationship has come under heavy strain over the last year, with Beijing bristling over new U.S. export controls on advanced technology; Biden ordering the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon after it traversed the continental United States; and Chinese anger over a stopover in the U.S. by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen earlier this year, among other issues. China claims the island as its territory.
On Biden's schedule during the Bay Area visit includes participating with Vice President Kamala Harris in a campaign reception late Tuesday, according to the White House.
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On Wednesday, the president will host a bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping. Biden will hold a news briefing after the meeting, according to the White House
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previously said in a statement the leaders would discuss the “continued importance of maintaining open lines of communication” and how the they “can continue to responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, particularly on transnational challenges that affect the international community.”
China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that Xi would attend APEC from Tuesday to Friday at Biden’s invitation and would take part in the U.S.-China summit.
The Biden-Xi meeting is not expected to lead to many, if any, major announcements, and differences between the two powers certainly won't be resolved. Instead, one official said, Biden is looking toward “managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open.” The officials said they believed it would be Xi's first visit to San Francisco since he was a young Communist Party leader.
Biden and Xi last met nearly a year ago on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. In the nearly three-hour meeting, Biden objected directly to China’s ”coercive and increasingly aggressive actions” toward Taiwan and discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other issues. Xi stressed that "the Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations.”
On Thursday, Biden will deliver remarks at the APEC CEO Summit and later host an APEC Informal Dialogue and Working Lunch, according to the White House.
The White House said Biden on Friday will meet with Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador before hosting an APEC Leaders Retreat.
