(BCN) — Leaders from the 21 member economies of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation conference assembled for their traditional family photo opportunity, deep within the bowels of San Francisco’s Moscone Center Thursday. About 75 photographers from the media along with from official delegations and the White House Press Corp were present to record the event.
The leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, came out onstage and in an almost balletic performance smoothly moved to their individual markers for photography.
Absent from the spectacle this year was the wearing of traditional costumes from the host country, often a point of whimsy in previous years. That tradition started in 1993 in the United States when then-President Bill Clinton gave attending leaders matching leather flight jackets.
Photographers duly recorded the ritual after waiting about 90 minutes. The whole event was over in little over a minute.
Among the highlights of this year’s conference was a sidebar between Biden and Xi, who met earlier this week in a private location in Woodside, just south of San Francisco. The meeting yielded several steps toward the renormalization of relations, including regular lines of communication between the countries’ military forces and an agreement to curb the proliferation of fentanyl.
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