Xi Heads to Washington Without Chinese CEO Delegation — SkimNews
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- Xi Jinping arrives in Washington this week without the Chinese business delegation Beijing had sought to assemble, two people familiar told Reuters, and it was not immediately clear why the proposed group would not attend.
- The White House either had "other priorities" or did not want Chinese firms believed to have links to China's military to be represented, the two unidentified sources said.
- Reuters had reported last week that China was finalizing a business-leader group for the trip, potentially including companies facing US regulatory scrutiny.
- Donald Trump is hosting a state dinner for Xi on Thursday, with US executives expected to attend, including 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's Albert Bourla, and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg.
- China's foreign ministry said it had "no relevant information" when asked whether business leaders would accompany Xi; the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Why it matters: The asymmetry is the story: Beijing wanted its CEOs in the room for face time with Trump, but Washington shut that out while rolling out the red carpet for American tech titans. Citing concerns over Chinese firms' military ties gives the US cover to keep Thursday's summit strictly government-to-government rather than a bilateral business bridge.
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