'Wants a global stage': Trump’s 'power move' fizzles as China’s Xi blows off inauguration

13 December 2024

No foreign head of state has attended the inauguration of any U.S. President, at least not in modern recorded times, but this week, President-elect Donald Trump invited the President of China to Washington, D.C. for the January 20, 2025 event. His invitation has been rebuffed.

“This is a power move to intimidate the Chinese leader—if he declines, it’s disrespectful, and Trump will take it personally,” Fox News host Jesse Watters trumpeted on Wednesday, praising the President-elect (video below). “And if he accepts, he’ll be forced to observe President Trump at his most powerful moment with all the presidential pageantry America can muster. You put Xi Jinping in a subservient position, plus you can spy on him the whole time he’s in D.C.”

According to a Trump advisor, CNN reports, the President-elect “is very eager to have world leaders at the inauguration,” and “wants a global stage” for his inauguration. Trump broke 152 years of precedent by not attending the inauguration of President Joe Biden, his successor in 2021.

But President Xi appears not to be worried about appearing to be “disrespectful.”

“Chinese President Xi Jinping is not expected to travel to Washington next month as an inauguration guest of President-elect Donald Trump, according to two sources familiar with the planning,” CBS News reported Friday. “CBS News was first to report that Trump had personally invited Xi to the swearing-in ceremony shortly after Election Day.”

CBS also reports that Trump’s “invitation to Xi, which was conveyed outside of formal diplomatic channels, took both Beijing and U.S. allies by surprise. Chinese officials who are accustomed to strict protocol and keenly aware of power dynamics in the US-China relationship were left wondering about Mr Trump’s intent.”

Calling the invitation “an exceptionally rare offer extended to the communist leader of one of America’s chief geopolitical rivals,” CNN reports that Trump has been “eager to turn his inauguration into a global event,” and “is personally extending invitations to some foreign leaders, including heads of state that have clashed with the United States in the recent past.”

Among the list of foreign leaders Trump has invited are several far-right authoritarians.

“El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Argentinean President Javier Milei have also been invited by Trump or his team, sources confirmed to CNN. All three are close allies of Trump who have also shaken the nerves of the US and its allies at times for their embrace of strongman tactics and their far-right politics.”

“The offers to attend his Washington fêting have been mostly informal, a person with knowledge of the conversations told CNN, and have sometimes come in passing during discussions over the phone about other matters. The person also said that some invitations have gone through back channels, not directly leader-to-leader, CNN also reports. “Trump has also dictated written invitations as well, a source familiar with the matter said, and had his team send them to foreign leaders.”

Newsweek adds that Trump is also considering inviting far-right authoritarian and Christian nationalist Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister, to his inauguration.

The Bulwark wants to know “what this invitation” to China’s President Xi “signifies for America’s relations with its allies in Asia. How does one think the Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Taiwanese received the news about this unprecedented invitation?”

“Another pertinent question is: What does Trump think he’s doing? Is this just more evidence of his insatiable desire to be at the center of world attention? Or is it something else?”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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