U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has extended an invitation to Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration in January, according to CBS News.
The invitation to the January 20 inauguration in Washington was sent in early November, shortly after the November 5 presidential election.
It was not clear if the invitation had been accepted, CBS reported.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump said in an interview with NBC News on Friday that he “got along with very well” with Xi and that they had “had communication as recently as this week.”
It would be unprecedented for a leader of China, a top U.S. geopolitical rival, to attend a U.S. presidential inauguration.
Trump has named several China hawks to key posts in his incoming administration, including Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.
The President-elect has said he will impose an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl.
He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60% on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.
In late November, China’s State media warned Trump that his pledge to slap additional tariffs on Chinese goods over fentanyl flows could drag the world’s top two economies into a mutually destructive tariff war.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, China’s U.S. Ambassador Xie Feng read a letter from Xi to a U.S.-China Business Council gala in Washington.
In this letter, Xi has said that Beijing is prepared to stay in communication with the U.S.
“We should choose dialogue over confrontation and win-win cooperation over zero-sum games,” Xi said in the letter.
Xie added that the two countries should not decouple supply chains.
But Nicholas Burns, the U.S. Ambassador to Beijing, said in a prerecorded video address that China at times tried to “sugar coat” challenging and competitive relations.
“No amount of happy talk can obscure our profound differences,” Burns said.
(With inputs from Reuters)
