The Chinese government held a “tourism leadership summit” to encourage Americans to visit China, featuring an invite from dictator Xi Jinping.
Xi sent a personalized message to the event, expressing the importance that “cultural and people-to-people exchanges” have for improving relations with America.
“We warmly welcome American tourists to travel to China, meet Chinese friends, experience Chinese culture, visit beautiful landscapes, and experience the real China,” Xi said in his message.
“It is hoped that all walks of life in the two countries will take this summit as an opportunity to have in-depth exchanges, build consensus, and take active actions to promote personnel exchanges through tourism cooperation, continue China-U.S. friendship with cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and help the San Francisco vision turn into reality,” Xi said.
In November 2023, President Joe Biden asked Jinping to restore military-to-military contacts.
The contacts ended the previous year after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.
China viewed the visit to Taiwan as the United States recognizing the country as self-governing, as China views Taiwan as part of its country.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at the time on CBS’ Face the Nation that having military-to-military contacts “has been a priority” for Biden.
Sullivan explained that communication is “necessary to manage competition responsibly, and to ensure that competition does not turn into conflict. And we need those lines of communication so that there aren’t mistakes or miscalculations or miscommunication. And so that could take place at every level from the senior leadership of our defense department and their defense ministry, all the way down to the tactical operational level, on the water and in the air in the Indo-Pacific.”
“I’m not going to get ahead of any announcements that the President might make coming out of the meeting,” he stated. “But I will say the President is determined to see the re-establishment of military-to-military ties because he believes it’s in the US national security interest.”