BEIJING, Sept 23 (Reuters) – China’s President Xi Jinping will arrive in Washington this week without the delegation of Chinese business leaders that Beijing had sought to bring for meetings with US President Donald Trump, two people familiar with the matter said.
Reuters reported last week that China was finalising a group of business leaders to join Xi’s US trip, potentially including companies facing US regulatory scrutiny.
It was not immediately clear why the proposed delegation would not attend.
One source said the White House has other priorities, while a second source said US officials did not want Chinese firms they believe have links to China’s military to be represented. Both sources declined to be identified because the plan was not public.
Asked at a regular briefing on Wednesday whether business leaders would accompany Xi on his US visit, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said: “I do not have the relevant information.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump is due to host a state dinner for Xi at the White House on Thursday that US company executives are expected to attend.
Those expected to participate include Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Meta Platforms’ Mark Zuckerberg.
(Reporting by Laurie Chen, Liz Lee in Beijing and Alexandra Alper in Washington; Writing by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
Comments