Xi Jinping tells US executives China will ‘open wider’ for business

Xi Jinping has told American chief executives travelling with Donald Trump that China’s door to business “will only open wider and wider” as the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies meet in Beijing.

Xi’s comments on Thursday came after the US president individually introduced a group of 17 business leaders — including Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and head of Tesla and SpaceX, Jensen Huang, the head of chip designer Nvidia, and Apple chief executive Tim Cook — to his Chinese counterpart.

“China welcomes stronger mutually beneficial co-operation with the United States, and believes that US companies will have even broader prospects in China,” Xi said, according to state news agency Xinhua.

According to the report, the American business leaders “expressed that they attach great importance” to China’s market and hope to deepen their operations in the country.

As he travelled to China this week, the US president promised that his first order of business would be to ask the Chinese leader to open the country to American business to help “bring the People’s Republic to an even higher level”.

On Thursday Trump told Xi: “We have the greatest businessmen in the world . . . and they’re here today to pay respect to you, to China.”

According to a readout of the Xi-Trump meeting released by Xinhua, the Chinese leader also called for the two sides to expand co-operation across the economy and trade, health, agriculture, tourism and law enforcement.

The world’s two biggest economies are at a tense juncture.

China has taken issue with Trump’s tariffs, the American war in Iran and Washington’s snowballing controls cutting Chinese access to America’s technology.

The US has opposed China’s actions on issues including military assertiveness around Taiwan and the South China Sea, Beijing’s deep state support for industry and unfair treatment of American companies trying to compete in the country.

Nvidia’s Huang, speaking to Chinese television in the morning from the Great Hall of the People, said the two leaders had a “good relationship”.

“We have great hope that their relationship will improve the relationship between the two nations,” he said.

Nvidia is among the US companies caught in the crossfire of rising geopolitical tensions. Nvidia has faced heightened sensitivity in both Washington and Beijing that has restricted China’s access to cutting-edge semiconductor designs. Huang is expected to use his time in Beijing to revive talks over Chinese orders for the company’s advanced H200 chips.

Additional reporting by Tina Hu in Beijing