US president-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said that he has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and other world leaders to his inauguration next month.
During an appearance at the New York Stock Exchange, where he was ringing the opening bell, Trump said that he has been “thinking about inviting certain people to the inauguration,” without referring to any specific individuals.
“And some people said: ‘Wow, that’s a little risky, isn’t it?’” Trump said. “And I said: ‘Maybe it is. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens,’ but we like to take little chances.”
Photo: AFP
His comments came soon after his incoming White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Fox & Friends that Trump had invited Xi and other world leaders to attend his inauguration.
No head of state has previously made an official visit to the US for an inauguration, US Department of State records showed.
The invitations come at a time when much of the world is bracing for what comes next when Trump returns to the White House.
He has vowed to levy massive tariffs against the US’ chief economic competitor, China, as well as neighbors Canada and Mexico unless those countries do more to reduce illegal immigration and the flow of illegal drugs into the US.
Trump has also pledged to move quickly to end Russia’s nearly three-year war in Ukraine and press NATO allies who are spending less than 2 percent of their GDP on defense to step up or risk the US not coming to their defense, as required by the alliance’s treaty, should they come under attack.
“We’ve been talking and discussing with President Xi some things, and others, other world leaders, and I think we’re going to do very well all around,” Trump said. “We’ve been abused as a country. We’ve been badly abused from an economic standpoint, I think, and even militarily, you know, we put up all the money, they put up nothing, and then they abuse us on the economy. And we just can’t let that happen.”
Danny Russel, vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said that Xi would not allow himself to “be reduced to the status of a mere guest celebrating the triumph of a foreign leader — the US president, no less.”
Still, Leavitt saw it as a plus.
“This is an example of President Trump creating an open dialogue with leaders of countries that are not just our allies, but our adversaries and our competitors, too,” she said on Fox & Friends. “We saw this in his first term. He got a lot of criticism for it, but it led to peace around this world. He is willing to talk to anyone, and he will always put America’s interest first.”
Leavitt did not detail which leaders beyond Xi had been invited.
Asked about Trump’s invitation, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning (毛寧) said yesterday: “I have nothing to share at present.”
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
INTENSIFYING THREATS: Beijing’s tactics include massive attacks on the government service network, aircraft and naval vessel incursions and damaging undersea cables China is prepared to interfere in November’s nine-in-one local elections by launching massive attacks on the Taiwanese government’s service network (GSN), a report published by the National Security Bureau showed. The report was submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of the bureau’s scheduled briefing at the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The national security team has identified about 13,000 suspicious Internet accounts and 860,000 disputed messages, the bureau said of China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan. The disputed messages focus on major foreign affairs, national defense and economic issues, which were produced using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed through Chinese
COUNTERING HOSTILITY: The draft bill would require the US to increase diplomatic pressure on China and would impose sanctions on those who sabotage undersea cable networks US lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill to bolster the resilience of Taiwan’s submarine cables to counter China’s hostile activities. The proposal, titled the critical undersea infrastructure resilience initiative act, was cosponsored by Republican representatives Mike Lawler and Greg Stanton, and Democratic Representative Dave Min. US Senators John Curtis and Jacky Rosen also introduced a companion bill in the US Senate, which has passed markup at the chamber’s Committee on Foreign Relations. The House’s version of the bill would prioritize the deployment of sensors to detect disruptions or potential sabotage in real-time and enhance early warning capabilities through global intelligence sharing frameworks,
RSS