(Reuters) -China denied it had sent invitations to European leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to meet with President Xi Jinping in Beijing in November, disputing a South China Morning Post report.
The report cited a senior source familiar with the situation as saying that invitations have also been sent to Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
At a regular press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian called the report “fake news”.
“I don’t know where they got the information. What I can tell you is, this is fake news,” he said.
(Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru and Yew Lun Tian in Beijing; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Alison Williams)