Friends, reunited! Gavin Newsom and partner Jennifer greet China's President Xi in San Francisco for the APEC summit - almost three weeks after their high stakes tete-a-tete in Beijing

China's President Xi Jinping arrived in San Francisco on Tuesday to hold his first face-to-face talks with President Joe Biden in a year.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, his partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen greeted the Chinese leader as he exited his airplane.

Earlier Tuesday Newsom greeted Biden when he touched down in San Francisco. 

Biden and Xi will sit down Wednesday on the sidelines of the summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum at Filoli, a secluded estate along Northern California's coastal range.

Newsom had his own meeting with Xi in Beijing last month during an official trip to California and worked to clean up San Francisco's streets before more than 20 world leaders arrived on its shores. 

'I'm here in expectation, as you suggest, of turning the page, of renewing our friendship and reengaging (on) foundational and fundamental issues that will determine our collective faith in the future,' Newsom said at that October sitdown in Beijing. 

With the world's eyes on San Francisco, Newsom boasted about work to 'clean up' San Francisco ahead of the APEC Summit - hours before a Czech television crew covering the summit were robbed of their cameras at gunpoint. 

Newsom said that work had been done on improving safety in the crime-ridden city, where robbery is up 13.7 percent, year on year, and businesses are fleeing the empty downtown.

'I know folks are saying, 'Oh, they're just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming to town,' said Newsom late last week.

But on Sunday evening, a Czech television crew covering the summit were held up at gunpoint and robbed of their equipment.

Bohumil Vostal and his colleagues were filming at 5pm on Sunday outside the well-known City Lights bookstore when three masked men attacked them.

'They were heading at my camera man, aiming a gun at his stomach, and one at my head,' said Vostal, speaking to The San Francisco Chronicle.

Vostal said the equipment was worth $18,000 - and they also lost an entire day's footage.

Meanwhile, Biden offered brief words about the strained US-China relationship shortly before leaving the White House.

He called for bringing them back to a 'normal course of corresponding.'

'We're not trying to decouple from China. What we're trying to do is change the relationship for the better,' he said.

Biden's Wednesday meeting with Xi is the main event of his four-day visit to San Francisco, where leaders from the 21 economies that make up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum are gathering for their annual summit.

The president's motorcade was greeted by hundreds of cheering people as he drove from the San Francisco International Airport to his stay in the downtown area. 

They waved Chinese and American flags, cheering as the motorcade raced by. 

Meanwhile, Filoli was built in 1917 as a private residence and later became a National Trust for Historic Preservation site. The estate is about 25 miles south of San Francisco. The Associated Press reported it as the site of the leaders' meeting, which has not been publicly announced for security reasons.

U.S.-China relations have been frayed for months, but the White House hopes a chugging U.S. economy and slowing unemployment can bring it new credibility in Biden's talks with other leaders.

'The president really feels we've got the wind at our back here,' said White House national security spokesman John Kirby on the flight west.

Additionally, Biden has been urged to meet San Francisco's homeless and see the city's squalor first-hand while he's in the city by the Bay. Social rights advocates have criticized the recent cleanup spree of San Francisco streets, saying it's merely not to embarrass the country when all the foreign leaders are in town.

But while Asian-Pacific issues are on the table, Biden will also work to keep the Israel-Hamas war from exploding into a broader conflict and to persuade Republican lawmakers to continue to spend billions more on the costly Ukrainian effort to repel Russia's nearly 21-month old invasion.

'President Biden this coming week will be doing a lot more than just meeting with President Xi,' White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday. 

He added that Biden would put forward his economic vision for the region, make the case that the U.S. is 'the very eminent driver' for sustainable economic growth in the Asia-Pacific, and hold the region out as critical to U.S. economic growth. 

While in San Francisco, Biden also will attend a fundraiser Tuesday night for his re-election. He'll also hold a bilateral meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.