“I am very happy to see you. We haven’t seen each other for more than three years…and you are an old friend of ours,” Xi Jinping told Bill Gates at a one-on-one meeting on Friday, according to Chinese state news site People’s Daily. The Microsoft cofounder was visiting Beijing to discuss U.S.-China relations with the Chinese president, and was also the only American businessperson Xi has met with privately in years.
After China lifted its strict “zero COVID” border closures in January, other tech tycoons such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook have visited the country. But no magnate besides Gates has met one-on-one with the president.
