US President Donald Trump told Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday that the two nations would have a “fantastic future together”.
“It’s an honour to be with you. It’s an honour to be your friend, and the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before,” Trump told Xi as they met for talks in Beijing.
Xi, on his end, told Trump that the two superpowers should be “partners and not rivals”.
“A stable China-US relationship is a boon for the world. Cooperation benefits both sides, while confrontation harms both. We should be partners and not rivals,” Xi said.
Trump was greeted by Xi on the red carpet at the Great Hall of the People, where the two shook hands and a grand reception took place.
A Chinese military band played the two national anthems as cannons fired, before the two leaders walked past a row of military honour guards and children waving flowers and small American and Chinese flags, chanting “welcome, welcome”.
Xi also shook the hands of several other US officials, including US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
After the ceremonial welcome, the two leaders entered the Great Hall of the People to begin bilateral talks.
Trump arrived in Beijing for a two-day summit, where the two nations are expected to discuss their fragile trade relationship, the Iran war and Taiwan.
Topics of trade, the Iran war and Taiwan are on top of the agenda
The president is seeking to sign deals with China to buy more agricultural products and aircraft, saying he’ll be talking with Xi about trade “more than anything else”.
Trump’s trade war with Beijing has sent US-China trade into a freefall and forced companies on both sides of the Pacific to regroup.
The US leader also said he would have a “long talk” with Xi about Iran, which sells most of its US-sanctioned oil to China. Trump is expected to encourage China to push Tehran to make a deal with Washington, even though the US leader insisted that he doesn’t think the US “needs any help with Iran” from Beijing.
Meanwhile, Xi is expected to bring up Washington’s decision to sell weapons to Taiwan, a self-governed island that China claims as its own and says must come under its control.
In December, the US announced large-scale arms sales to Taiwan, valued at more than $10 billion (€8.6 billion), but it has not yet moved forward with the delivery.
Trump and Xi are trying to stabilise their relationship during their meeting in Beijing, which lasts from the 13th to the 15th of May.
The visit to Beijing marks the first by a US president since 2017, when Trump last visited along with his wife Melania Trump, who did not accompany Trump this time.
The US leader was also accompanied by several top CEO’s on his state visit, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Tim Cook of Apple, as well as other executives from Meta, Visa, JPMorgan Chase, Boeing, Cargill, and more.
Also on the agenda is a visit to the historic Temple of Heaven, a World Heritage site where China’s emperors once prayed for good harvest, and a state banquet at the hall in the evening.
Additional sources • AP, AFP