Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in the US on his first visit to the country in six years during which he will hold a high-stake meeting with Joe Biden at an undisclosed location in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday morning.
After the Biden meeting, Xi will attend the annual summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
Xi’s summit with Biden will be the first face-to-face meeting between the US and Chinese leaders in a year and has been billed by US officials as an opportunity to reduce friction in what many see as the world’s most dangerous rivalry.
Xi waved from the steps of his Air China plane upon arrival and descended to meet US officials on the tarmac, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
He then got into his Chinese Hongqi, or “Red Flag,” limousine and departed the airport into San Francisco, where demonstrations are expected both for and against his visit.
Less than two hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed ministers of the 21-member APEC and stressed the US believed in “a region where economies are free to choose their own path…where goods, ideas, people flow lawfully and freely.”
Blinken did not mention China by name, but his language echoed US rhetoric in recent years in which Washington has accused China of bullying smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific and trying to undermine what the US and its allies call the “rules-based” order.
