The White House said on Saturday it canceled a planned visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao next week because of Hurricane Katrina.
“Both presidents agreed that, in the present circumstances, it was best not to have a meeting in Washington next week,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in a statement.
Also, from Reuters (via Boston Globe):
Chinese President Hu Jintao will hold a bilateral meeting with President Bush on the sidelines of the U.N. gathering of world leaders in New York in September, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
“The two heads of state agreed to hold (a) bilateral meeting in September at the U.N. summit meeting in New York,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted a ministry statement as saying.
Hu and Bush agreed in a telephone conversation on Saturday to postpone the U.S. leg of Hu’s visit to allow Bush to attend to a crisis over Hurricane Katrina, the statement said.
