Stephen Bannon secretly met with "the second most powerful Chinese Communist Party official" last week, The Financial Times reports. The 90-minute huddle with Wang Qishan in Beijing followed Bannon's speech in Hong Kong calling for stricter U.S. policy on China at a conference hosted by a state-owned brokerage and investment group.

Wang, 69, serves as the head of the Communist Party's anti-corruption campaign but is "expected to step down during the Communist Party's five-yearly congress next month, in line with informal retirement rules," the South China Morning Post reports. Nevertheless, there is some speculation he might stay on anyway.

Wang reportedly had questions for Bannon involving topics like "economic nationalism" and "populist movement," the South China Morning Post adds. "[Wang] must have had a reason to meet Bannon, and the topic doesn't seem relevant to his current job," said Zhang Lifan, a Chinese political commentator. "It's possible his political career will be extended, though maybe in a different area."

Bannon has claimed that America is in an "economic war with China" and he is a subscriber to the "Thucydides Trap" theory, which suggests that historical indicators show the U.S. is on an unavoidable path to war with China. "A hundred years from now, this is what they'll remember — what we did to confront China on its rise to world domination," Bannon said in a recent interview with The New York Times. Jeva Lange