Presidential Summit at Filoli: Biden and Xi Reflect on 12 Years of Diplomatic Ties
10th meeting for Biden and Xi in a mansion near San Francisco
Biden: “We’ve spent a lot of time together.”
Xi recalls a meeting in China 12 years ago when Biden was Vice President
Meeting at a historic mansion, including lunch and a walk
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The summit between U.S. President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held at a mansion near San Francisco on the 15th (local time), began amiably, with both leaders reflecting on their deep-rooted relationship that dates back 12 years.
President Biden said, “We have spent a lot of time together,” adding, “We have known each other for a long time. Unsurprisingly, we haven’t agreed on every issue, but the U.S. has always been honest.”
President Xi also recalled their first meeting, saying, “I think about the time we met in China when I was vice president,” adding, “12 years have passed, but I still vividly remember our communication.”
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According to The New York Times, President Biden and President Xi met eight times as vice presidents. The meeting on November 14 last year during the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, and the current meeting in San Francisco on the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit mark their tenth meeting. In this regard, President Xi refers to President Biden as ‘Lao Peng You’ (an old friend).
This visit to San Francisco is President Xi’s first since he was the party secretary of Zhengding County in Hebei Province in 1985. It’s also his first time setting foot on American soil since his visit to President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, in April 2017, a gap of 6 years and 5 months.
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President Biden chose the ‘Filoli Estate’ in Woodside, 40km from San Francisco, as the meeting place for his summit with President Xi.
This mansion was built in 1917 by William Bowers Bourn II, one of the wealthiest gold mine owners during the ‘Post Gold Rush’ era in California, and has since been designated as a preservation site by the non-profit organization the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP).
The estate, which includes a mansion of over 54,000 square feet (about 5,017 square meters), a 16-acre (about 64,750 square meters) garden, and a one-mile (1.61km) long walking trail on a 654-acre (2,650 square meters) site, is described by the Associated Press and other media outlets.
Notably, this mansion is where some scenes from the 1997 mystery thriller movie *The Game*, starring Michael Douglas and directed by David Fincher, and several episodes of the ABC prime-time drama *Dynasty*, which aired from 1981 to 1989, were filmed.
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President Biden greeted President Xi at the mansion’s front gate just before his arrival, and they posed for a photo while shaking hands. Afterward, both President Biden and President Xi waved to the press corps.
President Biden wore a checkered gray necktie, and President Xi wore his signature red necktie.
At the expanded summit, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen were seated on either side of President Biden. At the same time, Wang Yi, the head of the Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Office and Foreign Minister, sat next to President Xi.
In addition to these, the U.S. side was attended by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Kurt Campbell, the National Security Council’s Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, who has been nominated as Under Secretary of State, and his wife, Lael Brainard, the Chair of the National Economic Council (NEC), Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
On the Chinese side, attendees included Cai Qi, a member of the Communist Party’s Central Political Bureau and Secretary of the Party Central Secretariat, Jiang Jinquan, Director of the Central Policy Research Office of the Communist Party, Zheng Zaijie, Director of the National Development and Reform Commission, Lan Pu’an, Minister of Finance, Wang Wentao, Minister of Commerce, Xie Feng, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S., and others.
The two leaders held an expanded summit, a working lunch, a walk around the grounds, and a small meeting attended by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, among others.
By. Ha Man Joo
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