Chinese leader Xi Jinping hailed Henry Kissinger as an “old friend” during a meeting with the 100-year-old former US Secretary of State who is in Beijing this week for a surprise visit.
Xi met Kissinger at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, a diplomatic complex in western Beijing where Kissinger was received during his first visit to China in 1971, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Since then, Kissinger has visited China more than 100 times, Xi noted in the meeting.
In July 1971, Kissinger became the first high-ranking US official to visit Communist China. His secret meetings with Chinese leaders paved the way for then US President Richard Nixon’s “ice-breaking” trip the following year.
In the decades that followed, US-China ties blossomed alongside their economic interdependence. But in more recent years the relationship between the world’s two largest economies has deteriorated markedly.
For Xi, Kissinger’s presence was a reminder of less rocky times.
“We never forget our old friends, and will never forget your historic contribution to the development of China-US relations and the enhancement of friendship between the two peoples,” Xi told Kissinger.
“China and the United States are once again at the crossroads of where to go, and the two sides need to make a choice again,” he said, urging Kissinger and like-minded Americans to “continue to play a constructive role in bringing China-US relations back to the right track.”
Source: cnn.com
