PRESS RELEASE
State Department Confirms Trump-Xi Summit Next Week
March 29, 2017 (EIRNS)—An April 6-7 meeting of Presidents Trump and Xi has now been officially announced by the U.S. State Department. This came in a State telephone briefing to press yesterday. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will participate, and that was actually the substance of the announcement.
The Beijing-based CCTV-English also announced the summit today, in the process of promoting an immediately upcoming interview with U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chow. CCTV stressed that Ms. Chow is one of the most influential Asian-Americans, and that she would be centrally involved in plans for infrastructure investments—which could involve Chinese participation.
Many articles about U.S.-China collaboration on the Belt and Road Initiative, and in rebuilding American economic infrastructure, are appearing in China’s English-language press. One striking piece on CCTV’s site begins by citing the great scientist and American System founder Benjamin Franklin’s extraordinary respect for Confucianism.
"The great inventor and diplomat Benjamin Franklin was pondering an "American Civilization" that would be based on his readings of Chinese civilization. He exhorted the virtues of Confucianism. In 1737, he introduced to readers of the Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper a series of essays, ‘From the Morals of Confucius.’ He wrote Confucian philosophy was, ‘the gate through which it is necessary to pass to arrive at the sublimest wisdom and most perfect.’"
On the summit, South China Morning Post reported, citing a U.S. Secret Service source, that President Xi will not make other stops in the United States (i.e., will not meet Members of Congress). The paper also speculated that the unusual official quiet about the summit means that preparations of issues and possible agreements are going on up to the last point before the meeting.
