During Donald Trump’s toast at the state banquet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the US president said citizens of the US and China have long shared a “deep sense of mutual respect” and used history to illustrate the point.Benjamin Franklin published the sayings of the philosopher Confucius, Trump said.Chinese admirers of President George Washington gifted a stone tablet honouring his memory to adorn the Washington Monument. The tablet was inscribed with the words of a Chinese official who called Washington a great general and statesman, Trump said.Chinese workers helped lay the railroad tracks that connected the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the US while American travellers to China helped spread literacy and modern medicine, he said.Trump also noted President Theodore Roosevelt, acting on a request from China’s ambassador, provided money to establish Xi’s alma mater, Tsinghua University.