(May 7): Senator Steve Daines thanked Beijing for encouraging Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as the US searches for an off-ramp to a nine-week war that has roiled global energy markets.
The Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is leading a bipartisan congressional delegation on a trip to China, one week before US President Donald Trump is expected to hold a summit there with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
“I want to thank you for the meeting that you had yesterday with the Iranian Foreign Minister,” Daines told China’s top diplomat Wang Yi during a meeting on Thursday morning in Beijing.
“You are working to de-escalate tensions, to bring peace to the Middle East, to open up the Strait of Hormuz,” Daines said. “I want to thank you for your personal effort yesterday to that end, to help us bring together a peaceful outcome from the current conflict in Iran.”
Iran is expected to be a major topic of discussion during Trump’s high-stakes trip next week, already delayed once over the war. Trump and Xi are set to address pain points between the world’s largest economies, including sanctions and trade barriers. Daines said on Thursday that he also hopes the visit would lead to more purchases of Boeing airplanes.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang called the bilateral relationship “stable” and said China is ready to expand “practical cooperation” with the US, during a separate meeting with the group of lawmakers on Thursday afternoon.
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Wang, meanwhile, encouraged the two sides to “seek harmony in diversity and become partners rather than adversaries”, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Daines served as an intermediary during the last trade war, holding high-level meetings in 2019 with officials in Beijing, including Xi’s top negotiator at the time, Liu He. He is also a rare US politician with experience in the country, having worked in China and Hong Kong for six years in the 1990s as a Procter & Gamble Co executive.
Last year, he travelled to China for the China Development Forum and met with Li. He was joined by top US executives from Boeing Co, Cargill Inc, FedEx Corp, Pfizer Inc, and Qualcomm Inc. During the Thursday meeting, Li said Daines had “played an important role in promoting effective communication between our two sides”.
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Other legislators on the trip include senators Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, Republican Deb Fischer from Nebraska, Republican Mike Lee from Utah and Republican Jerry Moran from Kansas.
Uploaded by Tham Yek Lee
