Mike Pompeo was ‘snubbed’ by Beijing. Now it wants to show ‘a friendlier China’
2018-10-25 10:23:12 source：South China Morning Post
October 25, 2018
China snubbed Washington’s top diplomat Mike Pompeo when he visited Beijing this month as tensions ran high over trade and the South China Sea – but some in Beijing did not agree with the handling of the visit and hope to use a security forum to show “a friendlier China”, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The US secretary of state was given frosty treatment when he visited Beijing on October 8 – part of an Asia tour that also included Japan and the two Koreas – when Chinese officials were openly blunt and accused the US of escalating the trade war, the person said.
“Pompeo hoped to meet President Xi Jinping, but he was rejected. Then he had a meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi that lasted less than an hour, and Wang spent nearly the whole meeting chiding the Trump administration for ‘ceaselessly escalating’ trade tensions,” the person said.
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