Signs welcome visitors to the APEC Summit, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023, in San Francisco. Photo:VCG

Chinese President Xi Jinping left Beijing on Tuesday for a China-US summit meeting and the 30th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in the US, the Xinhua News Agency reported.   

The APEC meetings are expected to attract 20,000 people to San Francisco, according to media reports. The event will also bring leaders from 21 member economies together to promote trade and economic development in the region. 

San Francisco is on the "APEC time" as the California city has been making great efforts in reviving its image by hosting the most important economic event of the year and the largest international gathering since 1945. 

After arriving at the San Francisco International Airport, Global Times reporters saw welcoming signs such as "APEC is going to be epic. Welcome." displayed at the airport. As a special customs clearance venue has been set up for APEC meetings attendees, it took less than three minutes to pass through the border checkpoints. 

Some local media outlets reported that over the past several days, the city has engaged in an extensive cleaning operation, which included using high-pressure hoses to wash the sidewalks, sweeping the streets, and erasing graffiti. Also, great efforts were made to relocate homeless people into indoor accommodations.

To host the APEC meetings, the local government has spent copious amounts of taxpayers' money to transfer homeless people on the San Francisco streets to other places, a resident in San Francisco who gave his name as Fred told the Global Times on Monday. 

To enhance security, black metal fenced barricades are set up outside the Moscone Center where the APEC meetings are taking place.

Undoubtedly, during this year's APEC meetings, the interactions between the two major economies - China and the US - in San Francisco have captured the attention of the entire world, which is seen as one of the most significant diplomatic events in current international relations with its outcomes affecting bilateral relations and their future cooperation. 

Against the backdrop of the 2024 US elections, which may lead to more risks and turbulence in US-China relations, the San Francisco summit is seen as a "window of opportunity" to send out a positive signal of "stability" to the world, said observers, who also believed that the two countries are expected to announce a series of "small but tangible results" following its conclusion.

Meanwhile, there is anticipation that both sides will further reopen channels of communication, playing a role of "mediation and cushioning" in making the US-China relations going forward.

Message unleashed

Ahead of the high-stakes summit between Xi and Joe Biden this week, some US senior officials have attempted to dominate media narrative on the event, sharing their anticipation on "some of the most fundamental elements of the US-China relations." 

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that Biden believes there is no substitute for face-to-face diplomacy to manage the complex relationship, Reuters reported on Monday. 

Sullivan believed that the two leaders will stress on the importance of strengthening open lines of communication and managing competition responsibility so that it does not veer into conflict. 

Both the US and China "have a desire to stabilize [their] relationship," US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told CNN in an interview that was aired Saturday. 

Raimondo noted the world is looking to the US and China "to be responsible and manage this relationship." 

Raimondo acknowledged that there is a "great competition" with China, echoing similar sentiments expressed by President Biden, who has stated the US wants competition with China, rather than outright hostility and conflict.

"The US released messages intensively ahead of the San Francisco summit in order to set the tone for the Xi-Biden meeting, as stabilizing the bilateral relations is an urgent need for the US; however, rivalry remains at the center place in its China policy," Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Monday. 

"The US wants to elaborate on its fundamental stance on its China policy to the domestic political circle and the US public to gather more support at home. Meanwhile, it is trying to set the tone for its allies and partners, to ensure that they will continue to following Washington's vigorous competition with Beijing," Li said. 

"Although recent efforts will help stabilize bilateral relations, the US is not giving up on defining bilateral ties as rivalry-driven, which will continue to be the case," he said. 

Reporters work at the media center for the APEC meetings on November 12, 2023 in San Francisco. The APEC Economic Leaders’ Week runs from November 11 to 17. Photo: Xinhua

 

APEC's key role

As the largest economy in the world, the US has accelerated its strategic investments and presence in the Asia-Pacific region over recent years. Some experts believed that it will inevitably uses the APEC platform to incorporate elements and considerations of its own geopolitical agenda in the region, including possibly holding a ministerial meeting of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), and deliberately tries to echo the several pillars of the new vision in this year's agenda setting.

As the host of APEC in San Francisco, whether the Biden administration can abandon some of the unilateral and "America First" policies adopted by the previous Donald Trump administration, and integrate the common calls and wishes of all member economies for deepening regional development, constitute key factors in determining whether the US can be a good host today, Liu Chenyang, director of APEC Study Center of Nankai University, told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

In addition to the informal APEC Leaders' Meeting, the APEC Senior Finance Officials' Meeting and the APEC CEO Summit are also scheduled to convene this week. 

Some experts believe that APEC meetings can play an important role in many areas, including addressing climate change, food security, supply chain resilience, and women's economic empowerment, providing an opportunity for the numerous attending leaders and their senior officials to discuss relevant policies to make progress in these areas.

"However, the meetings are more likely to be a starting point for leaders to outline their priorities - the actual progress on these issues will be observed in the months and even years following the APEC meetings," Eric Harwit, an expert from the department of Asian Studies at University of Hawai'i at Manoa, told the Global Times on Monday.