In a rare encounter with an American business figure, Xi Jinping, China’s leader, met Friday with Bill Gates as officials from Washington were set to arrive in Beijing in an effort to restart bilateral discussions.

Mr. Xi told Mr. Gates that he was “the first American friend I met in Beijing this year,” according to People’s Daily, the Communist Party newspaper. Mr. Xi also said he wanted to build stronger ties with Mr. Gates’s philanthropic organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to help with aid to developing countries.

The Gates Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Gates’s trip to China, his first since 2019, overlaps with a visit by Antony J. Blinken, his first since becoming secretary of state. It was unclear if Mr. Blinken, who arrives Sunday, would meet with Mr. Xi.

Mr. Blinken had intended to go to China in February, a visit canceled after a Chinese spy balloon’s incursion into U.S. airspace set off a diplomatic crisis in Washington.