Three years ago, US-China ties were at a low point following a series of diplomatic disputes and concern about possible conflict over Taiwan. The Biden administration decided to pull out all the stops to try to build a rapport between the US president and his counterpart Xi Jinping, hoping that personal contact might stabilise relations even as it implemented tough measures such as export controls.
The Chinese leader, who was visiting San Francisco that November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, agreed to a bilateral summit at the nearby lavish Filoli country estate (once the set for the TV series Dynasty). When Joe Biden greeted his guest at the door, he showed him a snapshot on his phone of a younger Xi taken at the Golden Gate Bridge 38 years earlier. The normally taciturn Xi looked pleased.
Xi also grinned when Biden complimented the Chinese leader’s Hongqi, a commanding Mao-era retro limousine shipped in especially from China, and compared it with his own “Beast”, the heavily armoured presidential Cadillac.