The Chinese Embassy in Washington celebrated National Day on October 1, one week after President Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Ambassador Xie Feng mentioned that among the 800 guests present, there were representatives from the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Commerce, as well as Montana Senator Steve Daines, who has been something of Trump’s point person on China.

There was also a video of some of the scenes from the Xi-Trump meeting. Chase Robinson from the Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art, who had hosted the visit of Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan on their visit to the collection, spoke of the importance of the cultural relationship between the two countries.Ryan McInerny, the president of the US-China Business Council spoke of the enthusiasm of US investors in China and the possibilities of cooperation going forward. Ronald Sakolsky, a teacher from Pittsburg who had given $5,000 in 1999 to a seemingly impossible project that a woman in China had developed for greening the desert by planting trees, and whom President Xi had mentioned during his visit, also spoke, expressing his great surprise when President Xi mentioned his role in a project that has produced 80,000 trees. “I freaked out when I heard it,” he said. In an interview at the event, he also thanked the Chinese people for having the opportunity at the time to teach Chinese students to speak English. There were also statements from two students who had been given an opportunity to spend time in China under Xi’s earlier invitation to bring 50,000 students to China. (Now he is proposing to bring 100,000.)

But the highlight of the event was the performance by artists from China’s National Opera. Their program included “The Toreador Song” from Carmen with a Chinese bass-baritone, a four-part Chinese medley, “The Girl From Daban City”, a duet from Magic Flute. There were also ”The Song of the Yangtze River” and “Five Hundred Miles,” and the full cast, comprising two tenors, two basses, two sopranos and one mezzo, sang the Libiamo duet from La Traviata. Some really incredible voices, indicating the tremendous progress China is making in the field of song and opera.