Microsoft founder Bill Gates is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to China on Friday, according to Reuters.
Gates and Xi are set to meet in what may be a one-on-one meeting, two people familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters. According to the outlet, it will be Xi’s first meeting in recent years with a foreign private entrepreneur.
The sources gave no information about what the two will discuss, Reuters reported. Gates tweeted on Wednesday that he “arrived in Beijing for the first time since 2019” and will visit with “partners who have been working on global health and development challenges” with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for over 15 years.
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Xi met with Gates in China in 2015, and in 2020 he wrote a letter thanking Gates and the Foundation for giving China $5 million in COVID-19 assistance, according to Reuters. Xi did not travel abroad for approximately three years after China closed its borders during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other CEOs, including Apple’s Tim Cook and Tesla’s Elon Musk, visited China in recent months and spoke with government officials. The meetings were kept quiet due to tension between China and the U.S.
The meeting between Xi and Gates comes before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to visit China from June 18-19 with the intent of stabilizing relations between the U.S. and China, according to Reuters. Blinken spoke on Wednesday with Qin Gang, China’s foreign minister, who urged the U.S. to stop meddling in its affairs, the outlet reported.
Gates met with late sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein multiple times. He reportedly first met Epstein in 2011 after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes, and was pictured in Epstein’s infamous Manhattan mansion along with an adviser to his foundation.
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