BEIJING — President Xi Jinping treated President Trump to a lavish state dinner Thursday — a festive menu with nods to both Chinese and American culture — at the Great Hall of the People.
The elaborate menu included crispy beef ribs, roast duck, tiramisu, and ice cream — a favorite of the president.
At the banquet, Xi praised the American people and the US-China relationship after a year of rising tensions over Taiwan, fentanyl, and Beijing’s expanding territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The full menu:
The menu choice appeared to show off Beijing’s famous specialties, with the Peking duck and wheat noodles dish topped with soybean paste.
It’s also a notable difference from the dishes prepared for Trump’s first visit to China in 2017, where Beijing chefs put together kung pao chicken and stewed beef steak with tomato sauce to mimic some of the president’s comfort food favorites.
Trump’s tastes, however, were still taken into account on Thursday with the offering of beef ribs, which appeared to be a nod to the president’s preference for a well-done steak.
Trump’s chefs had notably prepared a dry-aged, prime New York strip steak during Xi’s visit to Mar-a-lago in 2017.
Beijing appeared to keep this in mind with Thursday’s banquet, which strayed from the Huaiyang cuisine typically prepared for state dinners.
Trump and Xi were seated next to each other during the banquet, which was decorated with greenery, a small lake with swans, and miniature Chinese buildings.
Before the feast began, Trump gave a toast over the long-standing relationship between Washington and Beijing, mentioning China’s many gifts to the US throughout the years — including a stone tablet adorned with the Washington Monument.
Trump then noted that President Theodore Roosevelt, acting on a request from China’s ambassador at the time, provided funds to establish Xi’s alma mater, Tsinghua University.
The president celebrated these moments as cultural exchanges between the two countries, joking that Benjamin Franklin loved to share Confucius’ teachings with Americans and Chinese citizens now love American “basketball and blue jeans.”
“Chinese restaurants in America today outnumber the five largest fast food chains in the United States, all combined. That’s a pretty big statement,” Trump said.
In his toast, Xi said it was paramount for the US and China to remain allies, touting the two nations as leaders of the world.
“President Trump and I, fully aware of the expectations of our two nations and the international community, have had multiple meetings and phone calls and kept China-US relations generally stable,” Xi said.
“We both believe that the China-US relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world,” he added. “We must make it work and never mess it up.”
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