President Joe Biden greets China’s President President Xi Jinping at the Filoli Estate in Woodside, Calif., Wednesday, Nov, 15, 2023, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative conference.
| Photo Credit: AP
U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping opened their first face-to-face meeting in more than a year on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, with a solid handshake ahead of talks with far-reaching implications for a world grappling with economic cross currents, wars in the Middle East and Europe, tensions in Taiwan and more.
The two leaders, meeting at a bucolic country estate outside San Francisco, are looking to get communication back on track after a tumultuous year and to show the world that while they are global economic competitors, they’re not locked in a winner-take-all faceoff.
Mr. Biden arrived first and awaited Mr. Xi, who got out of a black car and tookMr. Biden’s hand before the two leaders walked a red carpet through the estate’s grand entrance with a China flag on one side and a US flag on the other. Five Marines stood in formation.
Since they last met, already fraught ties have been further strained by the US downing of a Chinese spy balloon that had traversed the continental US and by differences on the self-ruled island of Taiwan, China’s hacking of a Biden official’s emails and other incidents.