Chinese President Xi Jinping began his first visit to the United States in six years on Tuesday. This was reported by Reuters.
On Wednesday morning, he plans to meet with US President Joe Biden in San Francisco and attend the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
The meeting will be the first face-to-face meeting between the US and Chinese leaders in over a year, and US officials see it as an opportunity to ease tensions in what many consider the world's most dangerous rivalry.
Xi waved from a passenger staircase attached to his Air China plane and then descended to meet US officials waiting on the runway, including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
After greetings, he got into his Chinese Hongqi, or "Red Flag" limousine and headed into the city, where both supporters and opponents of his visit are expected.
Less than two hours earlier, Blinken had addressed APEC members and emphasized that the United States believes in "a region where economies are free to choose their own path...where goods, ideas, people move legally and freely."
Blinken did not mention China in his remarks, but his speech echoed US rhetoric in recent years, in which Washington has accused China of bullying smaller Indo-Pacific countries and trying to undermine the existing "rules-based" order.
