While there is political tension between China and the US, economic diplomacy is in full swing. After meetings with Elon Musk and Tim Cook, Bill Gates also met with the Chinese leadership.

China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, used harsh words in his telephone call with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, earlier this week: “Do not interfere in our internal affairs, respect our claims to Taiwan, stop undermining our sovereignty.”

Chinese state media portrayed the call as a demonstration of Chinese power to the US government. The Chinese side has taken a similar tone towards US government officials recently.

Bill Gates – the “First American Friend”

In contrast, China’s communist leadership treated American business representatives entirely differently. Today, in Beijing, state and party leader Xi Jinping received Bill Gates, the founder of the software company Microsoft, and head of the foundation named after him.

A government spokesperson referred to Gates as Xi’s “first American friend” whom he had personally met this year. At the end of May, China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, was photographed smiling with Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, in Beijing. Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at a state-organized economic conference in China in late March.

Chinese Leadership’s “Parallel Diplomacy”

China’s leadership is striving to meet as many high-ranking foreign business representatives as possible – after all, the country’s economy is currently weakening, says Agatha Kratz, an expert in China’s global trade diplomacy at the Paris-based economic research institute Rhodium Group. For the US government, it is currently incredibly challenging to speak with representatives of China’s leadership.

Agreed-upon meetings are canceled, and agreements are not kept. Kratz does not rule out that the demonstrative attempts to court US business representatives are a kind of planned parallel diplomacy of the Chinese leadership.

US Secretary of State Blinken is expected in China on Sunday for the first time during his tenure. China’s leadership canceled a requested meeting of the defense ministers of both countries at a security conference in Singapore in early June.