Chinese President Xi Jinping is not likely to attend US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on January 20, despite receiving an invitation from him, according to two sources familiar with the planning, CBS News reported.
However, China’s ambassador to the US and his spouse are expected to attend the event, following standard diplomatic protocol, it reported, adding that other officials from Beijing may also join them.
According to CBS News, inauguration officials have designated staff to handle diplomatic protocol at the festivities.
However, the Chinese embassy in Washington has declined to comment on the matter, and also the Trump transition did not reply to a request for comment, a
per CBS News.
Meanwhile, Trump said on Thursday morning (local time), “We have a good relationship with China. I have a good relationship. We’ve been talking and discussing with President Xi some things.”
He declined to go into detail and was not asked specifically about Xi and the inauguration.
The invitation comes at an already tense time in the US-China relationship.The US intelligence community recently disclosed a farreaching hack of eight US telecom companies, assessing that Chinese actors had accessed the metadata of potentially millions of Americans, including high-ranking officials like Vice President-elect JD Vance.
