The two most powerful men on Earth, Joe Biden y Xi Jinpingmeet this Wednesday for first time in two years in the place that symbolizes the future of Humanity, its fears and its hopes: Silicon Valley.
The two leaders will have a four hour meeting duration in the Filoli Garden, a 10-hectare mansion and garden located half an hour by car (without traffic) from the headquarters of the most valuable company in the world, Applefrom the leader of social networks (with permission from the Chinese Bytedance, owner of TikTok) Metaand the Internet access door (Alphabetthe owner of Google). Of the three, yesOnly Apple is authorized to operate in China.
The meeting has been surrounded by the greatest possible secrecy to avoid protests, something to which Xi Jinping, who is essentially president for life of a technodictatorship in which the internet is used to control the population, has an allergy.
The summit was only confirmed by Beijing last Thursday. Until Tuesday evening, neither the exact place nor the time of the meeting was officially known. The Filoli Garden, which is open to the public, had a message on its website this morning informing visitors that it will be closed on November 14 and 15 “while we prepare the rooms for the holidays.”
The rooms, in reality, are going to be used by two leaders, 80 and 70 years old, who are in very low hours of popularity within their countries, although one of them has the indisputable advantage of being governed by a dictatorship. The great paradox, then, is that Biden and Xi, who have known each other in person for more than a decade, are the world’s greatest strategic rivals and yet they hope that these four hours will help them improve their respective political stars.