U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this month will visit Chengdu, China, the capital of Sichuan province that was hit by a huge earthquake in May, the State Department announced Thursday. The top U.S. diplomat will travel to Chengdu on June 29 as part of an Asian trip that also will include stops in Japan, South Korea, and Beijing, deputy spokesman Tom Casey said. Rice would be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Chengdu since the earthquake. Casey said she would express the “condolences of the American people” over the disaster that killed over 70,000 people in China.
