Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message to US President Donald Trump marking the 250th Independence Day, Beijing confirmed Monday. This comes as an unusual public gesture on a holiday China typically passes over in silence.“This year marks the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States. President Xi Jinping, on behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, has already sent a congratulatory message to US President Trump,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing.China does not usually publicise leader-to-leader greetings around the American holiday. In past years, Beijing’s involvement has been limited to sending a vice foreign minister to a reception at the US embassy, a pattern repeated this year and last, with Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu again representing China at the embassy event.The messaging shift follows months of effort by both governments to steady a relationship that soured sharply last year. At a Beijing summit in May, Xi told Trump the “common interests between China and the United States are bigger than our differences,” pressing both sides to move past what he called the “Thucydides Trap”, the idea that war grows likelier as a rising power threatens an established one.That diplomatic thaw stands in contrast to the tone Trump himself struck heading into the anniversary weekend. Speaking Friday at Mount Rushmore, Trump delivered a speech that broke from the traditionally unifying, apolitical tenor of past Independence Day remarks, warning that “communism is a mortal threat to American liberty” and calling it “the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor or even 9/11.” The address, delivered ahead of November’s midterms, also touched on immigration and took aim at what Trump described as a “communist menace” within the US itself.The contrast underscores the volatility that has marked the two countries’ ties over the past year. As recently as September, Trump lashed out on social media after watching footage of Xi hosting Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un at a military parade in Beijing, telling Xi sarcastically to “give my warmest regards” to the two leaders “as you conspire against The United States of America.”Formal state-to-state anniversary greetings are otherwise reserved by Beijing for a narrow circle of partners. Putin and Xi routinely trade messages on their countries’ national days, reflecting what both governments call a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” and Xi sent similar greetings this month to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Xi also messaged Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky on Ukraine’s independence day last August, the first such gesture toward Kyiv since Russia’s 2022 invasion.The precedent for US-facing July 4 messages is thin. The last comparable instance came in 2001, when then-President Jiang Zemin congratulated George W Bush by phone. More recent exchanges between Chinese and US leaders have tended to mark shared diplomatic milestones rather than the American holiday itself, Xi sent a letter in April marking 55 years since “Ping-Pong diplomacy,” and he and then-President Joe Biden exchanged messages in January 2024 for the 45th anniversary of formal US-China ties.No response to Xi’s message had been issued by the White House or State Department as of Monday.
