Leaders’ meeting aims 1st at trust

US President Donald Trump is looking forward to building a constructive and resultsoriented relationship that will benefit both the United States and China, a senior White House official said on Tuesday.

At the invitation of Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet the US president at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida on April 6-7.

The meeting will start in the afternoon on Thursday and continue on Friday until after lunch, making it a roughly a 24-hour informal visit, according to the senior White House official’s background briefing.

“This is really an opportunity for the two leaders to exchange views on each other’s respective priorities and to chart a way forward for the US-China bilateral relationship,” the official said, adding that the two leaders will talk about areas of common interest and also some of the clear areas of difference that need to be addressed in the relationship.

“President Trump really views this meeting as a first step toward building a constructive and results-oriented relationship that’s going to deliver benefits to both countries,” he said.

Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang last Friday described the meeting as “of great significance for the healthy and stable development of the ties as well as peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world”.

The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and bilateral trade and investment are some of the many issues to be raised at the meeting, but the senior White House official emphasized on Tuesday that this is an introductory meeting for the two leaders to meet one another, to develop the beginning of a working relationship and to start to establish a framework for addressing the issues. He cautioned that people should not anticipate resolutions from a one-day meeting.

The official said that President Trump has reaffirmed the US’ adherence to the One-China policy and he doesn’t anticipate

any surprise deviations from that during the summit.

The official also hinted that some existing dialogue mechanisms will be streamlined, elevated and have deadlines for achieving results. He did not say whether he was referring to the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue or the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.

There will be a readout at the end of the meeting about what was discussed and what the path forward is for resolving a lot of contentious issues “that are near and dear to the president’s heart,” according to the official.

He described Mar-a-Lago, referred to by some as “the winter White House”, as a place where Trump feels comfortable and at home and where he can break the ice with President Xi without the formalities of a Washington meet-up.

The two first ladies, Peng Liyuan and Melania Trump, will also be at Mar-a-Lago, and there will be time, particularly on the first day, for them to get to know each another in a more informal setting as well as at dinner, according to the senior White House official.

The second day will be a series of meetings, including a working lunch. “It’s possible that they’ll — they’ll walk around a bit, but as the mood strikes,” the official said, adding “nothing formal or nothing involving golf clubs”.