China wants ‘stable’ progress with US, Xi tells Kissinger

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, meets China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, meets China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday.
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AP, Beijing :
Chinese President Xi Jinping has told former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that Beijing hopes for “stable and sustained” progress in ties with the U.S. following last month’s American presidential election.
Xi said Friday his government is closely watching post-election developments in the U.S., and now is a “key moment” of political transition.
Xi also noted that he’d recently met with President Barack Obama and held a phone conversation with President-elect Donald Trump.
The 93-year-old Kissinger is a regular visitor to China, where he is deeply respected for laying the groundwork for the normalization of diplomatic ties between Beijing and Washington in the 1970s. The Republican Party elder statesman also met with Trump shortly after the Nov. 8 election and was expected to offer his impressions to Chinese leaders.
Trump lambasted China throughout the U.S. election campaign, drumming up headlines with his pledges to slap 45 percent tariffs on imported Chinese goods and to label the country a currency manipulator.
Xi told Trump that cooperation was the only choice for China and the United States in a telephone call a few days after his victory.
“The presidential election has taken place in the United States and we are now in a key moment. We on the Chinese side are watching the situation very closely. Now it is the transition period,” Xi told Kissinger.
“Overall, we would like to see the China-U.S. relationship move ahead in a stable and sustained manner.”
Xi met current U.S. President Barack Obama on the margins of the APEC meeting in Lima last month where he called for a “smooth transition” in Beijing’s relationship with the incoming cabinet.
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