As U.S. President Donald Trump showered praise on his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Friday, the CEOs of several U.S. aviation, commodities, technology, and finance conglomerates looked to advance their business interests by meeting the heads of powerful Chinese regulators and ministries. These include GE Aerospace, Boeing, Qualcomm, Cargill, Visa, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup, who held talks with the leading officials of Chinese government agencies such as the commerce ministry, state planner, securities regulator, and central bank, according to official government statements and state-backed media reports published on Friday and Saturday. The U.S. executives travelled to Beijing as part of the business delegation Trump brought to China. They stood behind Trump's cabinet on Thursday morning as they were each introduced to Xi, and later in the evening mingled with Chinese officials and businesspeople at a state banquet. The executives are hoping the political goodwill generated by the bonhomie between the two leaders can trickle down to China's bureaucratic apparatus and unlock regulatory approvals, lucrative purchase deals, and even solve thorny issues in the world's second-largest economy. The corporate diplomacy push came as analysts questioned the effectiveness of Trump's strategy to woo Xi into opening up China for U.S. companies, as he seemingly left Beijing with far fewer trade and investment deals than in 2017.