President Joe Biden was left to awkwardly handle a solo press convention on Wednesday after his four-hour assembly with Chinese language dictator Xi Jinping in San Francisco.
Xi most popular to keep away from the press, scooting off to his reception with big-name American businessmen and leaving the Chinese language Overseas Ministry to deal with his public relations work.
If Xi had achieved a joint presser with Biden and brought some questions from the press, he might need averted the awkward second when Biden informed a reporter he nonetheless views Xi as a “dictator.” It appears unlikely Biden would have answered that query the identical approach if Xi was standing behind him, though one by no means is aware of what’s going to emerge from Biden’s mouth when he speaks off the cuff.
Each second of Xi’s journey to San Francisco was tightly scripted, so the dictator was not about to let reporters take pot pictures at him. After his assembly with Biden, Xi dashed over to a dinner with enterprise executives, hosted by the U.S. China Enterprise Council and Nationwide Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
The visitor checklist included Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner, Elon Musk of Tesla and X, Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone, Larry Fink of BlackRock, and executives from main corporations from Boeing to Pfizer. A number of members of the Biden administration have been current, together with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and Xi introduced a few of his personal high officers as effectively.
Xi’s keynote deal with pointedly refuted a few of President Biden’s language on China, urging his viewers of American tycoons to view Xi’s genocidal regime as a “associate” as a substitute of a “competitor” or safety menace.
Xi made some efforts to woo again Western traders who’ve grown nervous about doing enterprise in China because the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, together with pledges that China solely desires peace and stability.
Inquisitive journalists might need requested Xi some follow-up questions, resembling why peace-loving China is ramming into Philippine ships within the South China Sea, however there was no indication that any of the assembled CEOs posed any such awkward queries. The American enterprise executives gave Xi a minimum of three standing ovations earlier than and after his speech.
“No matter stage of improvement it could attain, China won’t ever pursue hegemony or enlargement, and can by no means impose its will on others. China doesn’t search spheres of affect, and won’t battle a chilly conflict or a scorching conflict with anybody,” Xi mentioned in his speech. It appears doubtless that at the very least one reporter at a press convention would have requested why China is busy drawing maps that present it proudly owning all the South China Sea if it isn’t interested by “enlargement” or “hegemony.”
Xi may also have discovered himself fielding powerful questions in regards to the Uyghur genocide if he confronted extra decided interlocutors than a gaggle of CEOs hoping to make large cash in China. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), chair of the Home Choose Committee on China, despatched a letter to the hosts of the dinner on Monday saying it was “unconscionable” for them to provide the creator of the Uyghur genocide a platform the place he confronted no challenges.
Xi let Chinese language Communist companies and state media do most of his speaking after assembly with Biden. China’s closely censored social media stuffed up with tender and fuzzy portraits of Xi and Biden strolling by means of the Filoli property close to San Francisco, whereas state-controlled newspapers revealed heat reminiscences about Xi’s earlier journeys to America.
The Chinese language Overseas Ministry dealt with the response to Biden calling Xi a dictator, snapping that the American president’s remarks have been “irresponsible” and “extraordinarily incorrect.”
The Overseas Ministry’s abstract of the Biden-Xi assembly, delivered on Thursday morning by spokeswoman Mao Ning, was fairly a bit completely different than the pitch made to reporters by Biden administration officers on Wednesday night. Mao’s model had Xi doing extra speaking, and Biden doing extra listening:
The 2 heads of state had a candid and in-depth alternate of views. They held additional discussions about the best approach for China and the US to get alongside, clearly outlined the shared obligations of our two main nations, and got here up with a future-oriented “San Francisco imaginative and prescient”. The assembly recognized the course and drew up a blueprint for the sound, regular and sustained improvement of bilateral ties. It was a constructive, complete and constructive assembly of strategic and far-reaching significance.
President Xi elaborated on China’s place on stabilizing and bettering China-US relations. He identified that either side have to work collectively to kind an accurate notion, successfully handle variations, advance mutually-beneficial cooperation, assume due obligations as main nations, and promote people-to-people and cultural exchanges. On this approach, we can be constructing 5 pillars for the steady development of bilateral ties and embracing a brand new imaginative and prescient for our relationship. This main occasion in worldwide relations immediately will little doubt go down as a milestone in China-US relations.
It was a fruitful assembly with over 20 frequent understandings in political, diplomatic, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, world governance, army, safety and different fields. These necessary frequent understandings and deliverables additional attest to the wide-ranging frequent pursuits shared by China and the US. In addition they show that mutual profit is the defining function of China-US relations and dialogue and cooperation is the one proper selection for either side.
The one “deliverables” Biden’s folks appeared keen to debate on Wednesday have been Xi agreeing to revive communications between the U.S. and Chinese language militaries, and Xi agreeing to do extra in opposition to fentanyl suppliers.
The Chinese language authorities retains stressing how a lot Xi loves America and its folks, however that love apparently doesn’t lengthen to answering questions from anybody who isn’t prepared to speculate at the very least a billion {dollars} in China.