Rex Tillerson made a show of harmony with Chinese leaders during a whirlwind visit to Beijing, skipping over tensions around trade and North Korea to emphasize the personal bond between the countries’ presidents.
Rex Tillerson made a show of harmony with Chinese leaders during a whirlwind visit to Beijing, skipping over tensions around trade and North Korea to emphasize the personal bond between the countries’ presidents.
Over three meetings with President Xi Jinping and China’s top foreign policy officials, the U. S. Secretary of State spoke of, and heard about, the friendship that Xi has developed with President Donald Trump during two face-to-face encounters and multiple phone calls and letters.
“I’ve enjoyed each and every one of those engagements,” Xi told Tillerson. “We have made considered efforts to push for the growth of the China-U. S. relationship and the two of us have also maintained very good working relationship and personal friendship.”
The private discussions Tillerson had with Xi, State Councilor Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi were likely more substantive. But the public comments — made to reporters standing behind rope lines in the ornate meeting rooms of Beijing’s Great Hall of the People — were especially saccharine even by the standards of such photo-ops.
There was no mention of North Korea’s nuclear program or the U. S. desire for China to do even more to strangle Pyongyang’s economy.
