KEY POINTS
- US President-elect Donald Trump Invites Xi to attend his inauguration next month.
- Trump picks numerous China hawks to key posts in his incoming administration.
- Beijing is prepared to stay in communication with the US.
- Trump says he will impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods.
WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump has extended an invitation to Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month, according to western media.
According to CBS News and Reuters news agency, the invitation to the Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington occurred in early November, shortly after the Nov. 5 presidential election, and it was not clear if it had been accepted.
Reuters news agency reported that the Chinese embassy in Washington did not issue any statement over the matter.
Trump said in an interview with NBC News conducted on Friday that he “got along with very well” with President Xi and that they had “had communication as recently as this week.”
Reuter news agency reported that it would be unprecedented for a leader of China, to attend a US presidential inauguration.
Trump has named numerous China hawks to key posts in his incoming administration, including Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.
The president-elect has said he will impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl. He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60 percent on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.
READ ALSO: Trump Says Solving Ukraine Crisis His Top Priority
In late November, China’s state media also warned Donald Trump that his pledge to slap additional tariffs on Chinese goods over fentanyl flows could drag the world’s top two economies into a mutually destructive tariff war.
Separately on Wednesday, China’s US Ambassador Xie Feng read a letter from Xi to a US-China Business Council gala in Washington, in which the Chinese leader said Beijing was prepared to stay in communication with the US, according to Reuters news agency.
“We should choose dialogue over confrontation and win-win cooperation over zero-sum games,” President Xi said in the letter.
Xie added that the two sides should not decouple supply chains. But Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to Beijing, said in a prerecorded video address that China at times tried to “sugar coat” challenging and competitive relations.
