WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration subsequent month, CBS News reported on Wednesday, citing a number of sources.
The invitation to the Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington got here in early November, shortly after the Nov. 5 presidential election, and it was unclear whether or not it had been accepted, CBS reported.
The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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Trump stated in an interview with NBC News performed on Friday that he “bought alongside very effectively” with Xi and that that they had “had contact as lately as this week.”
It can be unprecedented for a Chinese chief, a significant geopolitical rival of the United States, to attend the US presidential inauguration.
Trump has nominated a number of China hawks to key posts in his incoming administration, together with Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of State.
The president-elect has stated he’ll impose a further 10% tariff on Chinese merchandise except Beijing does extra to cease trafficking in fentanyl, an addictive narcotic. During the election marketing campaign he additionally threatened tariffs of greater than 60% on Chinese merchandise.
In late November, Chinese state media warned Trump that his promise to impose further tariffs on Chinese items over fentanyl flows may drag the world’s two largest economies right into a mutually damaging tariff warfare.
Separately on Wednesday, Chinese U.S. Ambassador Xie Feng learn a letter from Xi on the U.S.-China Business Council gala in Washington, wherein the Chinese chief stated Beijing was prepared to stay in communication with the United States.
“We ought to select dialogue over confrontation and win-win cooperation over zero-sum video games,” Xi stated within the letter.
Xie added that the 2 international locations mustn’t decouple provide chains. But Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to Beijing, stated in a prerecorded video tackle that China has at occasions tried to “sweeten” the difficult and aggressive relationship.
“No quantity of joyful discuss can obscure our profound variations,” Burns stated.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward, David Brunnstrom, Michael Martina and Costas Pitas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
