Xi scores major diplomatic success in San Francisco

President Xi Jinping meets with US President Joe Biden at Filoli Estate in the US state of California, Nov 15, 2023. President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States for his summit meeting with his US counterpart Joe Biden, as well as the 2023 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in San Francisco last week, on the outskirts of the United States' most ethnically Chinese city, has turned out to be a major success for China's diplomacy. Xi also gave his high-powered audience a brief history lesson by pointing out that "our two countries initiated together with others the San Francisco Conference, which helped found the United Nations, and China was the first country to sign the UN Charter", adding that "starting from San Francisco, the post-war international order was established". In a shocking case of political mistiming, around the time Xi was visiting the US, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged the EU's 27 member states in two recent speeches in Berlin to get moving with the "de-risking" of economic ties with China or prepare for their businesses to be "steamrollered by unfair Chinese competition". Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who accompanied Xi on his trip, expounded on it by saying that the summit has been able to establish the "San Francisco Vision" orientated toward the future, but added that "there are still many deep-seated and structural problems, and many risks and challenges that need to be addressed jointly", noting that "San Francisco should not be the finish line but a new starting point."