BEIJING (Sputnik) – Beijing is ready to communicate with US President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team and does not rule out the possibility of holding a meeting with the team's representatives during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong said Wednesday.
"We maintain good relations with the current US President’s team. Concerning the team of the US President-elect, all channels of bilateral communication are open," Li said, adding that China is ready to discuss particular meetings, when asked if Chinese President Xi Jinping was going to meet with the representatives of Trump’s team within the framework of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting on January 17-18.
Li noted that China had scheduled bilateral meetings, but discussion of the particular meetings was ongoing as it was necessary to iron out final details.
On January 3, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang said China intends to promote stable relations with the world's largest countries, including Russia and the United States, in 2017
On December 11, Trump said he would not be bound by the "One China" policy regarding relations with Taiwan. Later in the month, Trump said that he did not exclude the possibility of a meeting with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, who was going to pay a working visit to the Latin American countries in January with a stop in the United States.
After Chinese Nationalist forces were defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communists, the Nationalist government moved to Taiwan in 1949. Since then, Beijing has viewed the self-ruled, democratic island as a breakaway province. The United States, along with many other countries, does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation and sticks officially to the "One China" position, but has kept informal relations with the island after severing diplomatic ties with it in 1979.
