Chinese VP meets with former senior U.S. officials

Visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping met in Washington Monday evening with several former senior U.S. officials.

Among the former officials are former U.S. secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, former U.S. treasury secretary Henry Paulson, former U.S. national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, and former U.S. secretary of labor Elaine Chao.

This was Xi's first major event after he arrived in the U.S. capital Monday afternoon for an official visit to the United States.

During the meeting, Xi spoke highly of their contribution to boosting the Sino-U.S. relations.

Kissinger made a secret visit to China in July 1971, paving the way for a groundbreaking 1972 summit meeting in Beijing between then U.S. President Richard Nixon and China's late Chairman Mao Zedong. Kissinger's visit opened a door for Sino-U.S. relations that had been closed for many years.

The two countries officially established diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial-level on Jan. 1, 1979.

Brzezinski was then U.S. President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor from 1977 to 1981, and made important contribution to the normalization of Sino-U.S. relations.