House Republican Demands Names of U.S. Executives Who Attended Dinner Where Xi Received Standing Ovation

American business leaders gave Chinese president Xi Jinping a rousing standing ovation at a banquet dinner in San Francisco after the foreign leader met with Joe Biden and high-ranking White House officials during an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference on Wednesday. In attendance were dozens of American business titans, including financier Ray Dalio, Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as the leaders of FedEx, BlackRock, Salesforce, and Pfizer.

“China is pursuing high-quality development, and the United States is revitalizing its economy,” Xi told the audience of high-powered chief executives who welcomed him on stage at the Hyatt Regency in a newly rehabilitated San Francisco, which was cleared of homeless encampments ahead of the visit. “There is plenty of room for our cooperation.”

Representative Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, demanded that the event’s sponsors — the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the U.S.–China Business Council — share the names of the more than 300 participants who attended the event, some of whom were willing to part with as much as $40,000 to sit at President Xi’s table. It’s unconscionable that Americans would shell out vast sums to celebrate a regime committing “genocide against millions of innocent men, women, and children in Xinjiang,” Gallagher told the Wall Street Journal.

“He offered no hints of concessions to business or even interest in more investment in the Chinese economy,” one attendee, a senior American business executive, told the Journal on conditions of anonymity, summarizing Xi’s talk. “The speech was propaganda at its finest.”

“American businesses should not be fooled into thinking business is open in China,” Representative Michael McCaul (R., Texas) told National Review in a statement Thursday afternoon. “The CCP has passed overly broad laws that allow it to seize proprietary business information, steal intellectual property, use any research or manufacturing for military purposes, and arbitrarily detain or put exit bans on high level business executives. China is far from a safe place to do business.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly attended the cocktail portion of the event but left before dinner.

Earlier Wednesday, Chinese and American leaders held a face-to-face meeting during which Xi stressed that bilateral relations with the U.S. could be a “win-win” if the superpowers found “the right way for the two major countries to get along with each other.”

“It is an objective fact that China and the United States are different in history, culture, social system, and development path. However, as long as they respect each other, coexist in peace, and pursue win-win cooperation, they will be fully capable of rising above differences,” Xi told a delegation of senior American officials, including President Joe Biden.

Before concluding his opening remarks, Xi spoke directly to Biden, thanking him for his “thoughtful arrangement for our meeting today.” “Mr. President, you and I, we are at the helm of China-U.S. relations. We shoulder heavy responsibilities for the two peoples, for the world, and for history,” the Chinese president said in closing, underscoring the importance of reaching “new understandings with you on strategic and overarching issues critical to the direction of China-U.S. relations and on major issues affecting world peace and development.”

Xi stressed the need for mutual respect and the need to refrain from interfering or seeking to “remodel” one another. “For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option. It is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other, and conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides,” Xi said.

Biden, who spoke first during the bilateral meeting, pointed to specific areas of global concerns where the United States and China could actively cooperate. “We also have a responsibility to our people and the work — and the world to work together when we see it in our interest to do so. And the critical global challenges we face, from climate change to counternarcotics to artificial intelligence, demand our joint efforts.”

“I value our conversation because I think it’s paramount that you and I understand each other clearly, leader to leader, with no misconceptions or miscommunication,” Biden continued. “We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict. And we also have to manage it responsibly — that competition.”

There were a few conspicuous absences from the evening, notably Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Alibaba founder Jack Ma who previously accompanied Xi during a similar trip to Seattle in 2015 but has since fallen out of favor with the Chinese leader after arguing that the country’s financial and regulatory system stifle innovation.