Xi Jinping Meets ‘Old Friend’ Bill Gates as US-China Tensions Intensify

Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates conferred with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday, as tensions between Washington and Beijing remain elevated.

According to Chinese state media, Xi Jinping told Bill Gates he was the "first American friend" he met in Beijing this year.

Bill Gates Meets Xi Jinping

Per BBC, Gates is the most prominent American businessman to visit China since the reopening of its borders. The United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, will also travel to China this weekend.

Xi's first meeting with a foreign corporate figure in recent years was this. He ceased traveling abroad in 2020 when China's borders were closed due to the pandemic. Xi and Gates may have last met in 2015. Elon Musk of Tesla, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, and Tim Cook of Apple have all visited the country this year. While they met with senior Chinese officials, Xi was not present.

Gates is in China as co-chairman of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an organization he co-founded with his ex-wife. Gates resigned from Microsoft's board in 2020 to devote more time to his foundation, which focuses on global health, education, and climate change.

Twelve years ago, he left his full-time executive position at the technology behemoth. This weekend, Blinken, the first US cabinet official to visit China in 2019 or later, will appear in Beijing. However, it is unlikely that significant progress will be made on the mounting list of disputes between the United States and China.

US-China Tensions at All-Time High

The billionaire's latest visit to China coincides with a tense period in US-China relations. Tensions are at an all-time high over the future of artificial intelligence and advanced semiconductors, Chinese officials' assaults on international businesses, and intensified concerns that China will attack Taiwan.

According to CNN, this is not the first time Xi has asked American corporate leaders to help enhance bilateral relations. Xi wrote to Starbucks (SBUX) former chairman and CEO Howard Schultz in 2021, requesting his assistance promoting bilateral ties.

Xi Jinping desires Starbucks and Howard Schultz to assist in mending US-China relations. According to a statement from the Gates Foundation, Gates' meeting with the leader of the world's second-largest economy occurred a day after his family's foundation pledged $50 million toward research in China for drug discovery and treatments of "infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, which disproportionately affect the world's poor."

Microsoft is one of the only Western tech titans to maintain a presence in China, as all others have been shut out. The entrepreneur is one of the most prominent foreign business executives who have succeeded in China. For decades, the company has maintained a highly influential research center in the country.

In previous years, Gates and Xi have had positive relations. Early in 2020, the Chinese leader sent him a personal letter of appreciation for providing emergency financing for the country's fight against COVID-19

However, US-China relations have recently deteriorated. Microsoft warned last month that Chinese government-backed hackers were likely pursuing capabilities that could be used to "disrupt critical communications" between the United States and the Asia Pacific in the event of a future US-China conflict.

Microsoft stated in a report that Chinese hackers have been active since the middle of 2021 and have targeted critical infrastructure organizations in Guam and elsewhere in the United States as part of an espionage and information-gathering campaign. Among the industries targeted by the hackers are maritime, transportation, communications, utility, and government.