Chinese President Xi Jinping said he is looking forward to working with incoming US President Donald Trump.
According to BBC, Xi, in his last meeting with current US President Joe Biden on Saturday, November 16, 2024, on the sidelines of the APEC summit of Pacific leaders in Lima, pledges to work with Trump while describing the relationship between Washington and Beijing as “the most important.”
Xi said, “China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation, and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-US relationship for the benefit of the two peoples.”
He further added, “The United States has recently concluded its elections. China’s goal of a stable, healthy, and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged. If we take each other as rival or adversary, pursue vicious competition, and seek to hurt each other, we would roil the relationship or even set it back.”
Notably, Trump did not have a friendly relationship with China during his first term in office he labeled Beijing a “strategic competitor,” and during the pandemic in 2020, he called the virus a “Chinese virus.”
Moreover, experts are skeptical about the US-China relationship in Trump’s second term as the 78-year-old during his campaign vowed to increase the 60% tariffs on all imports from China and has appointed prominent China hawks to top foreign and defence positions.
