Trump may visit China again and plan to attend APEC summit in Shenzhen

(Central News Agency, Taipei, 22nd) US President Donald Trump, who visited China in May, recently revealed that he will go to China again this year to attend a large-scale conference. Although he did not explicitly mention what conference it is, it is generally believed to be the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held in Shenzhen, Guangdong in mid-November. If Trump goes ahead, he will rewrite decades of diplomatic records between China and the United States and become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Guangdong.

Hong Kong's Sing Tao Daily reported that starting from Richard Nixon's ice-breaking visit in 1972, the footprints of successive US presidents in China have been concentrated in the two major cities of Beijing and Shanghai. In addition, Xi'an, as China's "ancient capital of thirteen dynasties", has also been favored by US presidents. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush all visited during their term of office.

It is pointed out that in 1998, when Clinton visited China, he also went to Guilin, which has "the most beautiful scenery in the world". In 2016, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province hosted the Group of Twenty (G20) summit, and Barack Obama was a guest. However, no US president has ever visited Guangdong while in office. Trump is likely to fill this void.

Trump has not attended every APEC summit in recent years. For example, he was absent from the Gyeongju Summit in South Korea last year. If he really participates in APEC in Shenzhen, the biggest motivation is of course to continue Sino-US presidential diplomacy. It is expected that there may be as many as four "Sichuan-Xi meetings" this year, setting a new record in the history of Sino-US exchanges.