Elon Musk gestures after attending a welcome ceremony for US President Donald Trump at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on May 14.

Nigerianewslite

Reporting 

Elon Musk gestures after attending a welcome ceremony for US President Donald Trump at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on May 14. Evan Vucci/Reuters

When US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held their landmark Beijing meeting in May, Trump brought with him a delegation of top American tech executives, including Tesla’s Elon Musk and then-Apple CEO Tim Cook.

But when Xi visited the United States this week, no Chinese CEOs showed up with him.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Xi was planning to have a large business delegation accompany him. The South China Morning Post also reported that executives from Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD, smartphone maker Xiaomi and battery powerhouse CATL were among those expected to accompany him.

But Chinese CEOs were conspicuously absent at Thursday night’s White House banquet.

Cui Hongjian, an international relations scholar with Beijing Foreign Studies University, told CNN that Beijing may have felt it wasn’t the right time for a prominent display of Chinese CEOs.

“Right now, both sides are still in a phase where they want to stabilize the political situation a bit more,” said Cui.

“Once both sides actually achieve some substantive breakthroughs in their economic and trade negotiations, I think it would be more appropriate to see prominent displays of cooperation at the CEO level or in the economic and trade sphere at that time.”

Wu Xinbo, a Chinese Foreign Ministry adviser, told CNN that logistical challenges also hampered plans to send a delegation. He also pointed to concerns in Beijing that some of Trump’s team were less positive about US-China relations than the US president.

“That is a major reason that the Chinese side didn’t send that economic and trade delegation over,” he said.

Nigerianewslite Humphrey contributed reporting.