Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met on Wednesday with his Pakistani Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar and pushed for a peace solution between the U.S. and Iran.
Speaking on the phone, Yi told Dar that Pakistan should “maintain confidence” and “step up mediation efforts” between the U.S. and Iran.
The comments came mere moments before President Donald Trump landed in Beijing for a visit with President Xi Jinping.
Dar has been one of the principal figures in Pakistan, serving as an intermediary between Tehran and Washington.
Despite recent tensions over Pakistan allowing Iranian military aircraft to remain parked on tarmacs in the country, Pakistan has continued trying to cajole American and Iranian negotiators back into peace talks.
Those talks appeared to have been mostly stopped as Trump landed in China two days after the U.S. president dismissed Tehran’s answer to the latest American peace offering as “totally unacceptable.”
Wang “commended Pakistan for encouraging dialogue between the United States and Iran and for assisting in extending the provisional ceasefire,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said in a summary of the phone discussion.
He expressed hope that “Pakistan will maintain confidence, step up mediation efforts, and contribute to properly resolving the issue of opening the Strait of Hormuz and the early restoration of regional peace, which is also the common aspiration of the international community.”
“China will continue to support Pakistan’s mediation efforts and make its own contribution toward this end,” spokesperson Lin Jian said.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is one of several business executives accompanying Trump on Air Force One as he travels to Beijing for the summit.
Fox News host Sean Hannity is also on the flight, as is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who was not included on the original guest list and joined as a last-minute addition during a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska.
Trump confirmed in a post on Truth Social that Huang was aboard Air Force One.
The US president also mentioned several other executives who were part of the official trip, including Tim Cook from Apple, Larry Fink from BlackRock, Stephen Schwarzman from Blackstone, Kelly Ortberg from Boeing, Brian Sikes from Cargill, Jane Fraser from Citigroup, Larry Culp from GE Aerospace, David Solomon from Goldman Sachs, Sanjay Mehrotra from Micron, and Cristiano Amon from Qualcomm.
Trump also noted in his Truth Social post that the first thing he would bring up with Xi is to “open up” China to American businesses, and that a CNBC story claiming that Huang was not included in the business leader entourage was wrong.
Trade, Taiwan, the Iran war, and artificial intelligence are expected to be the main topics of discussion during the upcoming meeting, as officials from both sides have spent months negotiating the details in preparation.
Trump first announced his plans to visit China during his meeting with Xi at the Busan summit in South Korea on October 30.
Beijing has indicated that it will prioritize U.S. policy on Taiwan during the talks, while Trump is expected to advocate for progress on trade and the security of the Strait of Hormuz, according to reports.
Air Force One landed in Beijing, China, at approximately 7:51 a.m. ET (Wednesday morning U.S. time and Thursday morning in China) at Beijing Capital International Airport. The plane taxied for about eight minutes before the doors opened for the official red-carpet arrival.
President Donald Trump deplaned at 8:08 a.m. ET and was greeted by Chinese Vice President H.E. Han Zheng, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. H.E. Xie Feng, and Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs H.E. Ma Zhaoxu.
The welcoming ceremony featured approximately 300 Chinese youth, a military honor guard, and a military band. “Welcome, welcome! Warm welcome!” the children chanted in Chinese.