Beijing, China:
China’s President Xi Jinping has asked former Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz to assist market trade involving Washington and Beijing in a uncommon missive to a foreign enterprise figure, state media reported Thursday.
Xi, responding to an earlier message from Schultz, urged the multi-billionaire to “continue to play an active role in promoting China-US economic and trade cooperation”, the official Xinhua news agency stated.
China will “provide a broader space for companies from all over the world, including Starbucks and other American companies, to develop in China”, Xi wrote in his letter.
It was not promptly clear why the letter was published by state media, but it comes as relations involving the superpowers have reached a nadir with bitter disputes more than trade, tech, safety and rights.
Starbucks, a ubiquitous sight in key Chinese cities, says it has opened more than 4,700 coffee shops across the nation given that 1999.
Schultz, who stepped down as chairman of the chain in 2018 but retains an honorary title at the firm, had previously congratulated Xi on China’s transition into “moderately prosperous society”, Xinhua stated.
US-China ties have grown increasingly strained below the administration of Donald Trump.
Beijing and Washington have also sparred more than blame for the Covid-19 pandemic and China’s human rights record in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
But China’s top rated diplomat Wang Yi has known as for each sides to “restart the dialogue” and “rebuild mutual trust” with the incoming US administration of president-elect Joe Biden.
Xi and Schultz previously met at a formal reception in Seattle in the course of the Chinese leader’s state stop by to the US in 2015.
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