© picture alliance / Consolidated News Photos | Aaron Schwartz - Pool via CNP
US President Donald Trump will pay a state visit to China from Wednesday to Friday at the invitation of President Xi Jinping. It's the first visit by a U.S. president to China since 2017. The visit was previously scheduled for March, but was postponed due to the war in Iran.
Trump will be accompanied by a group of prominent businessmen and tech billionaires, including Elon Musk (Tesla), Tim Cook (Apple) and top executives from Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, BlackRock and Blackstone.
The US-China relationship remains strained: early in Trump's second term, the two countries imposed high import tariffs on each other, though these were paused since last fall.
Trump previously stated that his visit to China will be mainly about trade and investment. However, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and other officials expect Taiwan to be on the agenda as well. China claims Taiwan as its territory and does not rule out military action to recapture it, while the U.S. has indicated it may intervene militarily to defend its longtime ally.
Chinese and American experts expect Xi Jinping to use the conversation about Taiwan primarily to convince Trump to slow down or scale back U.S. arms sales to the island, the New York Times reports. A previously approved $11 billion arms sale by the U.S. to Taiwan led to sharp Chinese criticism and a two-day Chinese military exercise near the island. Now a second package of about $14 billion is on Trump's desk, but he continues to put off that decision.
Picture: © picture alliance / Consolidated News Photos | Aaron Schwartz - Pool via CNP