US President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month, CBS News reported, citing multiple sources.
Trump invited Xi in early November, shortly after the US election, sources said, but it was not clear whether he has accepted the invitation.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately comment.
Trump said in an interview with NBC News last Friday that he "got along with very well" with Xi and that they had "had communication as recently as this week."
In addition to Xi, Trump's team has raised the possibility of hosting other leaders at the Capitol on January 20.
Hungary's far-right leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has a warm relationship with Trump and visited him at Mar-a-Lago this week, is "still considering" whether to attend, according to a source familiar with Orbán's plans.
"World leaders are lining up to meet with President Trump because they know he will soon return to power and restore peace through American strength around the globe," Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said.
Ambassadors and other diplomats are typically invited to inaugurations, but State Department records dating back to 1874 show that a foreign leader has never attended a transfer-of-power ceremony.
Members of Trump's inner circle remain sharp critics of Xi's government, including Senator Marco Rubio, his pick to be secretary of state, and incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Trump has said he will impose an additional 10 per cent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop the trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl. He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60 per cent on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.
In late November, China's state media warned Trump that his pledge to slap additional tariffs on Chinese goods over fentanyl flows could drag the world's top two economies into a mutually destructive tariff war.
Separately on Wednesday, China's US Ambassador Xie Feng read a letter from Xi to a US-China Business Council gala in Washington, in which the Chinese leader said Beijing was prepared to stay in communication with Washington.
"We should choose dialogue over confrontation and win-win co-operation over zero-sum games," Xi said in the letter.
Xie added the two countries should not decouple supply chains. But Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to Beijing, said in a prerecorded video address that China at times tried to "sugar coat" challenging and competitive relations.
"No amount of happy talk can obscure our profound differences," Burns said.
Agencies
