At the San Francisco airport to receive Xi Jinping were California Governor Gavin Newsom, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other U.S. representatives. The Chinese president was there to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Summit, as well as to meet U.S President Joe Biden, about a year since both leaders met at the G20 Bali Summit.

 

Some western media, however, took the opportunity to demonize and insult China. The anti-Chinese media claimed Mr Xi was desperate to repair the US-China relationship due to the so-called plunging Chinese economy, while the American economy is booming. Beijing’s crackdown on Chinese businessmen has caused uncertainty, spooking international business community, the media claim.

 

As a result of the Chinese sluggish economy, the anti-China media said, foreign investors and companies are now moving their money out of China in search of better investment returns elsewhere. Heck, the world’s second largest economy was painted as suffering from serious property market crashing and skyrocketing youth unemployment that Xi Jinping is about to lose power.

Li Mingjiang, an associate professor at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said – “Mr Xi will want to receive reassurance from Joe Biden that the U.S. will not expand its trade war or tech rivalry, nor take additional measures to decouple economically”. In short, the Chinese leader was flying all the way to San Francisco to beg Sleepy Joe to stop punishing China.

 

Yet, along the way to the St. Regis luxury hotel where President Xi is staying, banners along with flags and balloons were seen greeting and hailing the Chinese leader. Welcoming Xi’s arrival were tonnes of pro-China supporters. In fact, there were so many Chinese flags that it pissed off reporter Nick Sortor, who said – “NOT A SINGLE AMERICAN FLAG IN SIGHT. Does this piss anybody else off?”

 

Of course, Chinese diplomats have been accused of paying US$200 a pop to mobilize patriotic flag-wavers, including free transportation for the occasion. But even before the invasion of Chinese flags, many Americans, including politicians were astonished and stunned over how swiftly the city was cleaned up of its deplorable homeless problem to impress President Xi.

Governor Gavin Newsom was condemned for his efficiency and eagerness to “clean up the house” for the Chinese communist leader, but not for his actual constituents. Rep. Jim Jordan was furious – “Democrats: Will clean up cities like San Francisco for a communist leader’s visit. But ignore the problems their own citizens face every single day.”

 

Exactly why was the 40th governor of California so eager to appease a Chinese communist leader if indeed China is crumbling and desperately needs American’s help? Perhaps they were ashamed of the filthy streets of San Francisco and did not want the Chinese media to laugh and ridicule the world’s biggest economy and superpower. Perhaps President Biden was weak.

 

But Xi Jinping’s priority was not to meet Joe Biden. His mission was to meet American business leaders, and to show how the top CEOs would kowtow to the Chinese “dictator” in exchange for access to Chinese massive and lucrative market. Not only U.S. business moguls happily splashed up to US$40,000 each to dine at the same table as the Chinese president, but they gave Xi a “standing ovation”.

 

After a boring round of talks with Biden regarding climate change, counter-narcotics and artificial intelligence, Xi headed to dinner at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Downtown San Francisco. Even before his arrival on American soil, tickets costing US$2,000 for a three-cost meal, not to mention one of the eight seats at Xi’s table that cost a whopping US$40,000, was snapped up like hot potatoes.

 

Top executives who scrambled to pay US$40,000 to dine with President Xi included BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, Citadel Securities CEO Peng Zhao, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

 

Other CEOs at the reception, which took place on the final day of the annual two-day meeting of 21 Pacific nations, were Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Boeing’s Stan Deal and FedEx’s Raj Subramaniam, Amway’s Milind Pant, Broadcom’s Hock Tan, KKR’s Joseph Bae, Gilead Sciences’ Daniel O’Day, Honeywell’s Darius Adamcyzk, Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, Mastercard’s Merit Janow and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of X, did not stay for the dinner even though the billionaire had paid US$2,000 just to shake hands with President Xi. It’s not hard to understand why the dinner with Xi was a hot ticket for CEOs of America’s most prominent companies – a chance to rub elbows with high-ranking government ministers of a country that did nearly US$760 billion worth of trade with the U.S. last year.

 

Coming from the horse’s mouth, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo admitted the irresistible opportunity in the U.S.-China economic relationship – “All of you here this evening remain keenly interested to do business in China, and to find ways to advance our bilateral economic relationship. I know that, because half of you have come to see me to tell me that.”

 

Crucially, all the American CEOs wanted to listen to Xi Jinping’s keynote address, which differs significantly from Biden’s. He said – “The number one question for us is, are we adversaries or partners? If one sees the other side as a primary competitor, the most consequential geopolitical challenge, and a pacing threat, it will only lead to misinformed policymaking, misguided actions and unwanted results”.

Instead of adversaries, Xi emphasized that China wants a “win-win” and “peaceful co-existence” partnership with America. And to assure the business community of Chinese’s pro-business policy, he announced that China will be sending some “pandas” to the San Diego Zoo, after three of the bears were recently returned to China from Washington’s Smithsonian National Zoo.

 

Mr Xi said he learned that Americans – particularly children – were “really reluctant” to say goodbye to the rare and popular animals. Was he sending a message that the Americans could not live without Chinese products? After all, he xsaid that while China has no intention to challenge the U.S. or unseat it, the U.S. should not bet against China, or interfere in China’s internal affairs.

 

Despite spending four hours talking and sharing a lunch with top advisers, the formal bilateral meeting between Xi and Biden did not achieve much. But the POTUS appeared quite happy with the discussion. He said both nations will “keep the lines of communication open and Xi is “willing to pick up the phone” – suggesting that Washington could not afford new confrontations with Beijing.

Xi also agreed to help curb the production of the illicit fentanyl, which has been wrecking havoc in the country. Biden said at a press conference – “It’s going to save lives, and I appreciated President Xi’s commitment on this issue”. It appears that it was the U.S. that is begging China for help, not the other way round. And it certainly doesn’t look like American investors are leaving China in droves as claimed.

 

The fact that Xi was greeted with not one, but three standing ovations during a dinner with some 400 top American corporate captains that the U.S. companies do not wish to de-couple, de-risk or whatever the White House wished to call it. Like it or not, China’s economy is approaching US$20 trillion. Hedge fund titan Ray Dalio of Bridgewater said that he was “excited” to have this relationship with the Chinese president.

 

The rousing standing ovation must be so painful and humiliating to Washington that Representative Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, demanded that the event’s sponsors – the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the U.S. – China Business Council – share the names of the participants who attended the dinner.

 

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November 19th, 2023 by financetwitter

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