U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the highest ranking U.S. official to visit China in five years. But U.S. business leaders have been making the trip for years.
Blinken’s trip was meant to ease tensions between the two countries but it did not appear to be too successful as top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi seemingly blamed Washington for the tensions.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates appeared to have more success recently when he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, where he was greeted as “an old friend”.
Other business leaders such as Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook and Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan have all visited China this year.
While they held meetings with senior Chinese officials, they did not meet Xi, instead choosing to focus on making deals in the country.
Geopolitical tensions have been running high in recent years on issues related to technology.
China has long blocked U.S. tech companies from operating within its borders. But more recently, the U.S. has begun exploring similar options with Chinese companies such as Huawei and even social media platform TikTok.
But these bans are reaching into even more critical technologies such as semiconductors and other 5G technologies.
Semiconductors are in fact a main touchpoint of the tensions with Taiwan, which is one of the world’s largest producers.
