Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.
NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images
Bill Gates, the billionaire cofounder of Microsoft, has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday, discussing issues related to poverty reduction and public health in what the state-run Xinhua News Agency described as the president’s first meeting with an “American friend” this year.
The meeting, which took place amid fraying ties between the world’s two largest economies, also saw Xi congratulating the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s philanthropic work in related areas. The president said China is willing to work with other countries on innovative technologies, and together address global challenges such as the pandemic and climate change.
Xi said people should communicate and visit each other more now that the world is emerging from years of Covid restrictions. The Chinese president said he had always placed his hopes in the American people, and wished to see continued friendliness between the two sides, according to Xinhua. Gates responded by saying the philanthropic foundation he co-chairs will strengthen its cooperation with China in areas including agriculture and new drug discovery, and promote related technologies to other developing countries, Xinhua reported.
Gates, who is the world’s fifth richest person with a net worth of $119 billion, arrived in the Chinese capital on Wednesday in his first visit to the country since the pandemic began, he said in a tweet. Before meeting the Chinese president, Gates on Thursday spoke at the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute, where he congratulated China for eliminating malaria within the country and mentioned deceased scientist Yuan Longping’s widely celebrated achievements in developing higher-yield rice strains.
The Gates Foundation, together with the Beijing municipal government, will each donate $50 million to the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute. The institute was established in 2016 by the Gates Foundation, Beijing government and Tsinghua University—Xi’s alma mater—to help develop new drugs and fight infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, according to a statement from the Gates Foundation. Gates also met with Beijing’s mayor Yin Yong on Thursday, with the latter vowing continued support for the institute, according to a statement from the city government.
Gates’s visit, in the meantime, came less than a month after Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s trip to China in May. The electric car billionaire has used his visit to send messages such as that the interests of the U.S. and China are intertwined, and Tesla opposes a so-called decoupling.
Gates, who stepped down from Microsoft’s board in 2020 but continues to derive his wealth from a 1.3% ownership in the software giant, has been pursuing philanthropy since. In 2020, the billionaire received a letter from Xi, who thanked him for supporting China’s fight against the pandemic after his foundation pledged in the same year up to $100 million to help the country accelerate the development of treatments and vaccines.
The last officially reported in-person meeting between them took place in 2015, when Xi met the mogul on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in China’s southern Hainan province. They discussed issues including public health and poverty reduction, according to a government statement at the time.