HONG KONG — China is sending Vice President Han Zheng to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington, Chinese state media reported Friday, marking the first time a senior Chinese leader will have attended a new U.S. president’s swearing-in.
“We are willing to strengthen dialogue and communication with the new U.S. government, properly manage differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, jointly promote the stable, healthy and sustainable development of China-U.S. relations, and find a way for China and the U.S. to get along correctly,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement announcing the trip by Han, who sometimes fills in for Chinese President Xi Jinping in ceremonial roles.
Representatives for the Trump campaign and the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately return NBC News’ requests for comment.
The Trump transition team said last month that it had invited Xi to the event in a highly unusual move that experts said was mostly a symbolic gesture. Foreign heads of state do not typically attend U.S. presidential inaugurations, sending diplomats or other top-level officials instead.
U.S. relations with China, its top geopolitical rival, have been turbulent in recent years as the two countries clashed over a range of issues including technology, trade, human rights and the status of Taiwan. But in the estimation of President Joe Biden’s outgoing U.S. envoy to China, those relations have stabilized during his administration after reaching their lowest point in decades.
Trump has long boasted of his relationship with Xi, calling him “brilliant” and praising him as a strong leader. China has become more authoritarian since Xi came to power more than a decade ago, and he is currently serving a rare third consecutive term.
“I think we will probably get along very well, I predict. But you know, it’s got to be a two-way street,” Trump told the conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt this month, accusing China of “ripping off” the U.S. economically.
Trump told Hewitt that he and Xi had a “great relationship” until the last year of his first term, when Trump criticized Beijing over its handling of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The president-elect also said he and Xi had been speaking through representatives. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not confirm any exchanges through Trump and Xi’s aides but said China and the U.S. had been in contact in various ways.
Trump has named a number of China hard-liners as his Cabinet picks, including secretary of state nominee Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is under Chinese government sanctions over his criticism of the crackdown on dissent in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.
Trump’s first term saw Beijing and Washington imposing a series of retaliatory tariffs on each other, a “trade war” that may worsen in his new administration, economic experts have said.
During the presidential campaign, Trump vowed to impose tariffs of 60% or more on all Chinese goods imports, and after his election he said he would slap an additional 10% tariff on China unless it stops the international flow of precursor chemicals for the deadly opioid fentanyl.
Trump has also expressed opposition to a looming ban on TikTok after earlier supporting a law requiring its Chinese parent company to divest its U.S. operations over national security concerns. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is among the tech leaders expected to attend the inauguration on Monday, a day after the ban is set to take effect.
