According to two persons knowing the situation, co-founder of Microsoft Corp Bill Gates is scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping this Friday while in China.
This will be the first time in recent years that Xi has met with a foreign private business owner. The sources indicated that the meeting might be one-on-one. Without giving any additional information, a third source verified that they will meet.
What the two may discuss is unknown. Gates wrote on Wednesday saying that he had been to Beijing for the first time in 2019 and that he would be meeting with partners collaborating with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on issues of global health and challenges for its development.
In 2020, Gates left the Microsoft board to devote himself to charitable endeavors on climate change, global health, and education. In 2008, he resigned from full-time executive duty of Microsoft.
In 2015, on the outskirts of Boao forum in the Chinese province of Hainan, Xi and Gates reportedly had their last encounter. In early time of 2020, Xi issued a letter to Gates to thank him and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for promising financial support for China, which includes $5 million to help the nation's fight against the COVID-19.
The meeting will bring to an end to Xi's extended absence from meeting overseas private sector owners and business leaders in the recent years. The Chinese president had not travelled outside of China for almost three years due to China closing its borders because of the pandemic.
Since the country's reopening at the beginning of this year, some overseas CEOs have traveled there, but the majority mostly met with ministers of government.
In March, Premier Li Qiang had a meeting with a number of international CEOs, including Tim Cook of Apple. Additionally, a source said that Elon Musk of Tesla also had a meeting with vice-premier Ding Xuexiang in last month.
But as Sino-American tensions rise and Xi sharpens China's focus on its national safety, the attitude of the international business community toward China has changed to one of caution.
A long-delayed trip by Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, to China is scheduled on June 18 to 19. Blinken's trip is intended to normalize ties between the two nations, which are strategic competitors and the two biggest economies in the world. Gates' visit occurs before that trip.
On a difficult phone discussion on Wednesday, Blinken spoke with Qin Gang, the foreign minister of China, who pleaded with the US to cease interfering in his country's internal affairs and endangering its security.