Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Monday is already bucking the trend with several heads of state, like Argentinian president Javier Milei and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni expected to be in attendance.
Asia hasn’t been left out. Trump extended an invitation to Chinese president Xi Jinping to attend the inaguration. Xi is instead sending Vice President Han Zheng to the celebrations in Washington D.C. India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar will also be at the inauguration.
China’s Han is already in the U.S., and has been busy meeting business leaders ahead of the inauguration. According to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Han met representatives from the U.S.-China Business Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Han urged U.S. companies, including Tesla, to “seize the opportunity, share the fruits of China’s development, and make new and greater contributions to promoting China-U.S. economic relations.”
Tesla has a large footprint in China, as one of the top sellers of EVs in the world’s largest car market. It also operates a Gigafactory in Shanghai, the first car plant in China to be wholly-foreign owned.
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On Sunday, China’s vice president also met JD Vance, the U.S. vice president-elect. The two discussed fentanyl and trade issues, according to CBS News, citing Trump transition officials.
Han’s role as vice president is largely ceremonial, as he does not have a seat on the Politburo, China’s equivalent to a presidential cabinet. Still, he’s the most senior Chinese official to attend a U.S. inauguration.
On the campaign trail, Trump threatened to impose steep tariffs, as high as 60%, on China. After winning the election last November, he pledged to impose an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods. Yet economists now think that Trump’s tariffs may not be quite as bad as feared; earlier this year, Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius predicted that Trump might impose an average of tariff of 20%.
Trump and Xi spoke on Friday, according to posts on Trump’s Truth Social account. The two talked about trade, fentanyl, and TikTok. “The call was a very good one for both China and the U.S.A.,” Trump wrote.
TikTok restored its services in the U.S. after briefly going offline on Sunday, after Trump promised to pass an executive order to delay the enforcement of the divest-or-ban law. Trump also said he would seek a joint venture that puts 50% of TikTok in U.S. hands. The ByteDance-owned social media platform publicly thanked Trump in a statement on Monday.
And Trump might be making an early trip to Beijing. The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with discussions, reported that Trump wants to visit China within his first 100 days. Trump last visited China in 2017, about a year into his first term as president.
Trump is also considering a trip to India as well, reports the Wall Street Journal. The U.S. president-elect last visited the South Asian country in 2020.
