Pictures of ddp / SIPAPRE / Female / AP
Henry Kissinger celebrated his 100th birthday on June 20, 2023.
CNN
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Henry Kissinger, the 100-year-old former US Secretary of State who is in Beijing this week for a surprise visit, met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday – a day after US climate envoy John Kerry ended his trip to restart climate talks with China.
Xi met Kissinger at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, a diplomatic complex in western Beijing where Chinese leaders regularly receive foreign dignitaries, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The meeting took place after Kissinger met with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who has been under US sanctions since 2018 over China’s purchase of Russian weapons.
Kissinger’s meeting with Xi indicates how highly he is regarded by the Chinese leadership.
His first unannounced visit overlapped with Kerry’s high-profile visit to Beijing, which saw the US and China resume climate talks that had been frozen for nearly a year.
Notably, Kerry, who is also the United States Secretary of State, was not granted an audience with Xi, despite being a serving member of the current administration of President Joe Biden and some observers expected in the past that such a face-to-face could be on the cards.
Kissinger, who said he was in Beijing “as a friend of China,” played a key role in paving the way for the US to establish diplomatic ties with Communist China half a century ago during the Nixon administration.
The former diplomat has visited China more than 100 times since 1971, when he paid a secret visit to Beijing to pave the way for Nixon’s “ice-breaking” trip the following year, CCTV reported.
