NEWSMAX | Published December 13, 2024
Chinese leader Xi Jinping would likely see President-elect Donald Trump’s invitation to attend his inauguration as too risky to accept, and the gesture from Trump may have little bearing on the increasingly competitive ties between the two nations as the White House changes hands, experts say.
Trump’s incoming press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed Thursday that Trump extended an invitation to the Jan. 20 ceremony. The Chinese Embassy in Washington said it had no information to provide. But experts don’t see Xi coming to Washington next month.
“Can you imagine Xi Jinping sitting outdoors in Washington, D.C., in January at the feet of the podium, surrounded by hawkish members of Congress, gazing up at Donald Trump as he delivers his inaugural address?” said Danny Russel, who previously served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
Russel, now vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said Xi would not allow himself to “be reduced to the status of a mere guest celebrating the triumph of a foreign leader — the U.S. president, no less.”
Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank, said Beijing will play it safe when there’s no protocol or precedent for a Chinese leader to attend the inauguration of a U.S. president.
“I don’t think the Chinese will take the risk,” Sun said.
There could be risks in the guest list, for example, Sun said, noting that Taiwan’s top diplomat in the U.S. attended the swearing-in of President Joe Biden in 2021. Beijing considers Taiwan to be Chinese territory and has repeatedly warned the U.S. that it is a red line not to be crossed.
Should Trump slap tariffs as high as 60% on Chinese goods upon taking office as he’s threatened, Xi would look like a fool if he had chosen to attend, and that’s unacceptable to Beijing, Sun said.
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SOURCE: www.newmax.com
RELATED: Trump invites China’s Xi, other world leaders to his inauguration
FILE – Then-President Donald Trump poses for a photo with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019.
VOICE OF AMERICA | Published December 13, 2024
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping and other foreign leaders to his January 20 inauguration, but it is not known yet whether any of them plan to attend the ceremony on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News it was yet “to be determined” whether Xi will accept Trump’s invitation, which was extended in early November, shortly after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris for a new four-year term in the White House.
She did not name other world leaders who have been invited. Typically, foreign ambassadors to Washington and other diplomats have witnessed the peaceful quadrennial transfers of U.S. presidential power but not heads of government. State Department records dating to 1874 show that no foreign leader has attended a U.S. presidential inauguration.
But Leavitt said the invitations to the noontime outdoor ceremony in six weeks are “an example of President Trump creating an open dialogue with leaders of countries that are not just our allies but our adversaries and our competitors, too. He is willing to talk to anyone, and he will always put America’s interests first.”
If Xi travels to Washington, it could provide a first opportunity during Trump’s second presidential term for the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies to discuss contentious trade and military issues.
Trump has threatened to impose massive tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States, partly to push Beijing to curb the deadly flow of fentanyl into the U.S. and to boost the sale of U.S. products in China.
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SOURCE: www.voiceofamerica.com
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