Xi Jinping plans to lead a large business delegation to the United States to pave the way for the Sichuan-Xi meeting

(Central News Agency Beijing Comprehensive Foreign News Report on the 4th) Reuters quoted two sources as saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping is preparing to lead a large business delegation to visit Washington. The move is rare given U.S. skepticism of Chinese investment and tensions between Beijing and private companies.

Reuters reported that Xi Jinping rarely travels with business executives, many of whom have fallen out of favor since Beijing launched regulatory crackdowns on the technology, education and real estate industries in 2020.

This business delegation prepared for the Sichuan-Xi meeting on September 24 has not been reported before. Reuters could not confirm which senior officials would join the delegation.

A source familiar with the discussions said the move was aimed in part at signaling China's willingness to support investment and business ties with the United States while providing the White House with some potential economic gains ahead of the midterm elections.

The last time Xi Jinping visited the United States was in 2015 with a large business delegation that included Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Tencent founder Pony Ma, and senior executives from China’s banking industry and state-owned enterprises.

During that visit, Boeing received orders worth $38 billion. At that time, Xi Jinping also met with top US technology industry executives including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

In contrast, U.S. President Trump has led high-level delegations of large U.S. companies to visit China, including in 2017 and in May this year, in order to seek greater opportunities to enter the Chinese market.

According to sources, Trump led 18 U.S. business executives to China in May this year, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Elon Musk.