US CEOs line up to woo China’s Xi in San Francisco

A number of top U.S. business leaders will host Chinese President Xi Jinping for a dinner on Wednesday evening after his meetings with President Joe Biden in San Francisco.

The dinner, taking place on the fringes of the 2023 APEC summit, will be the first opportunity for many of these CEOs to pitch Xi directly on their companies. Xi has not traveled to the United States in six years.

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A full list of the CEOs attending the event has not been published, but confirmed attendees include Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Eight-seat tables at the dinner will reportedly cost executives $40,000, a relatively low barrier for entry considering the business potential.

The Biden administration has urged companies to “de-risk” supply chain shocks by moving some operations back from China to the United States.

Despite escalating tensions between the U.S. and China over the past year, Biden stressed to reporters Tuesday that he views the nation as a competitor, rather than an out-and-out enemy.

“We’re not trying to decouple from China. What we’re trying to do is change the relationship for the better. From my perspective, if, in fact, the Chinese people who are in trouble right now economically, if the average homeowner — if the average citizen in China was able to have a decent paying job that benefits them, and it benefits all of us,” the president said before departing the White House for San Francisco. “But I’m not going to continue to sustain the support for positions where if we want to invest in China, we have to turn over all our trade secrets.”

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Xi and Chinese officials in turn have tried their hand at wooing U.S. business back to Beijing.

Musk visited China this past summer, and Chinese officials point to the trip as evidence that the country is a safe place for foreign companies to invest and see steady growth. Apple CEO Tim Cook also visited Beijing this fall and met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, though Cook will not attend APEC this year.