'Old friend': Henry Kissinger meets China's Xi Jinping in second surprise Beijing talks

Veteran U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger met with Chinese President Xi Jinping Thursday during a astonishment sojourn to Beijing, according to authorities media.

The 100-year-old erstwhile U.S. Secretary of State was hosted by the Chinese premier astatine the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, CCTV said successful an online post.

Details of the talks were not disclosed, though a connection praised Kissinger arsenic a "legendary diplomat" successful notation to his anterior enactment successful negotiating U.S. rapprochement with China, according to a Google translation of the report.

"Chinese radical worth friendship, and we volition ne'er hide our aged person and your historical publication to promoting the improvement of Sino-US relations and enhancing the relationship betwixt the Chinese and American peoples," an further study from authoritative authorities quality bureau Xinhua quoted Xi arsenic saying, according to Google translate.

The U.S. State Department did not instantly respond to CNBC's petition for remark connected the meeting. However, Reuters reported that the White House said Kissinger was not visiting China connected behalf of the U.S. government.

Kissinger's talks with Xi were his 2nd unexpected gathering of the week, aft the erstwhile diplomat spoke with China's Defense Minister Li Shangfu on Tuesday.

The talks travel amid wider efforts to thaw diplomatic tensions betwixt the 2 planetary powers. U.S.-Sino relations person grown progressively fractured implicit caller months amid a drawstring of tit-for-tat tech assemblage commercialized caps, accrued tensions astir the Taiwan Strait, and information concerns pursuing U.S. interception of a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

Kissinger — who successful 1971 helped broker talks betwixt then-U.S. President Richard Nixon and China's Mao Zedong, paving the mode for normalized relations — is inactive held successful precocious respect successful China.

A video accompanying CCTV's station shows footage of Kissinger sitting with Xi successful 1 of the palatial rooms of the authorities guesthouse — a determination considered much intimate than the Great Hall of the People, wherever authoritative diplomatic meetings are typically held.

The video besides features footage of the caller visits to China of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. clime envoy John Kerry.

Notably, Blinken was the lone different U.S. authoritative to unafraid look clip with Xi implicit caller weeks, holding a last-minute meeting that was described arsenic robust but conciliatory.

Kerry, successful a four-day sojourn to Beijing which concluded Wednesday, signaled that a forthcoming meeting betwixt U.S. President Joe Biden and Xi could beryllium connected the cards aboriginal this year.

Kerry was referring to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders' Summit, which the 2 leaders are acceptable to be successful San Francisco successful November. The past clip the brace met was successful November at the G20 acme successful Bali, Indonesia.