The U.S. has officially extended an invitation to Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi to visit Washington a week after he was reappointed to the post following the abrupt removal of his predecessor. 

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller confirmed the meeting invitation during a press briefing on Tuesday. 

What You Need To Know

  • The U.S. has officially extended an invitation to Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi to visit Washington a week after he was reappointed to the post, the State Department said

  • Wang's appointment followed the curious and sudden removal of his predecessor, who has not been seen in more than a month 

  • Miller did not confirm if Wang had accepted the invitation
  • The news comes at a rocky time in the United States’ relationship with China

Miller said the invitation was officially extended on Monday during a meeting between U.S. Assistant Secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and Director General of the North American and Oceania Affairs at China's Foreign Ministry Yang Tao. 

“In the meeting yesterday, we extended the invitation that had previously been made to the former foreign minister, Qin Gang, and made clear that that invitation did transfer over to Minister Yi,” Miller said on Tuesday. 

Wang Yi – who previously held China’s foreign minister job – was appointed to the post last week. It marked the abrupt removal of Qin Gang who took over the job in December. 

After holding the job for seven months, Qin has not been seen in over a month. China’s foreign ministry previously said he was ill. 

In its announcement of the new appointment on the national evening news, state broadcaster CCTV gave no reason for Qin’s removal. Within minutes, all mentions and photos of him had been removed from the Foreign Ministry’s website. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken initially invited Qin to meet in the U.S. to continue talks the two started on Blinken’s trip to China in June. Blinken met with Wang in Indonesia in July. 

Miller did not confirm if Wang had accepted the invitation. 

“I’ll let the Chinese Government speak to their side of it. We certainly expect that it is something that they would accept, and it is a trip that we expect to happen,” he said on Tuesday. 

It comes at a rocky time in the United States’ relationship with China. Blinken’s trip to the country – the first from a U.S. secretary of state in five years – was aimed at cooling exploding tensions. 

Blinken returned to the U.S. saying the two countries had agreed to stabilize the relationship but without an agreement on the U.S.’ biggest ask: better communications between militaries. 

Immediately following, President Joe Biden called Chinese leader Xi Jinping a “dictator” at a campaign fundraiser, sparking swift pushback from China. 

Biden defended his comment saying he did not believe it would negatively impact the countries’ relationship and reiterating that he still expects to meet with Xi “ sometime in the future, near-term.” 

 In February of this year, the U.S. shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over U.S. airspace and in June, news of a Chinese spy base in Cuba became public. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.