Despite what he said in the meeting, Xi is not nearly as enthusiastic about the pursuit of good-faith engagement as his American friends have suggested he is.
When a delegation of U.S. executives and other dignitaries met Xi Jinping this week in Beijing, they went to great lengths to praise the Chinese leader.
Readouts of the meeting varied slightly between different Chinese state arms. According to the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs’ English-language summary, the group hailed Xi’s “extraordinary leadership” and made optimistic comments about China’s “new quality productive forces” — a new propaganda slogan that touts economic growth driven by artificial intelligence and other high-tech sectors. Meanwhile, CCTV, a television channel under the control of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department, said the U.S. delegation referred to Xi’s “outstanding leadership.”
Of course, the Chinese Communist Party lies all the time. But the Americans all but confirmed that they did conduct themselves in a notably obsequious way during their meeting with their country’s primary adversary.
“Xi made a compelling case for why the U.S. and China must cooperate. We were all deeply impressed and recommitted to building a cooperative U.S.-China relationship that benefits the peoples of both countries,” Steve Orlins, the president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, wrote on X after the gathering. The meeting was a joint production of NCUSCR and the U.S.-China Business Council. “NCUSCR was pleased to invite some of its directors, member companies, and friends to the event,” Orlins wrote.
The delegation this week represented some of the core members of NCUSCR’s network. Among the attendees were Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg, Barrick Gold’s John Thornton, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Bloomberg chairman Mark Carney, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam, and Harvard professor Graham Allison, in addition to others. Notably, Apple CEO Tim Cook, who attended the China Development Forum this week, was not present.
One CEO who attended the meeting on Wednesday told a CNBC reporter that the Americans posed tough questions, to which Xi responded with tough answers. But the whole exercise appears to be a boon to the party’s efforts to downplay China’s economic woes and Xi’s national-security crackdown on foreign businesses in China, for foreign and domestic audiences. Accordingly, Chinese propaganda outlets published videos from the session in which the American executives appeared busy taking notes as Xi spoke — not videos featuring their purportedly tough questioning of Xi.
While the high-level character of the meeting’s attendees makes their participation noteworthy, that this meeting occurred is not surprising. NCSUCR regularly convenes sessions with Xi and other high-level Chinese Communist Party officials, furthering its mission of fostering a cooperative relationship between Washington and Beijing. Compared to a dinner reception that NCUSCR and the U.S.-China Business Council put together in Xi’s honor last November in San Francisco, this was a much less significant event. Over 300 people attended last year’s event, with participants including Elon Musk and California governor Gavin Newsom.
Wednesday’s meeting is significant because it’s a reminder that America’s China lobby is alive and well and that it continues to push for U.S. “cooperation” with China at the cost of realistically appraising Xi’s malign ambitions. Despite what he said in the meeting, Xi is not nearly as enthusiastic about the pursuit of good-faith engagement as his American friends have suggested he is. Look no further than the Justice Department’s disclosure this week that hackers hired by China’s spy agency targeted senior U.S. government officials for over a decade, or to the recent congressional testimony of Admiral John Aquilino, America’s top commander in the Indo-Pacific, confirming that the People’s Liberation Army is on track to meet Xi’s directive to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027.
All of this makes the optics surrounding this meeting awkward enough. But you don’t even need these recent headlines to know that it’s wrong to praise the Chinese Communist Party. A sense of patriotism and allegiance to one’s country, over the interests of the foreign dictatorship attempting to use the U.S. business community as a propaganda tool, should suffice.