Xi tells Trump factors fray ties

China laments U.S. stances

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping warned President Donald Trump in a phone call late Sunday that “some negative factors” are hurting U.S.-China relations.

Xi’s comments, reported by state broadcaster China Central Television, follow China’s displeasure over U.S. arms sales to rival Taiwan, U.S. sanctions against a Chinese bank over its dealings with North Korea and, most recently, the sailing of a U.S. destroyer within the territorial seas limit of a Chinese-claimed island in the South China Sea.

China was also upset by the poor grade it received from the U.S. State Department last week in a new report on human trafficking.

A White House spokesman said Trump made the call to discuss North Korea and the sanctions on the Chinese bank. But according to Chinese state media, Xi used the call — which took place Monday morning in Beijing — to tell Trump that China expects the U.S. to “handle the Taiwan issue appropriately.”

Xi wants the U.S. to continue the one-China policy that rules out formal contacts with Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.

Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, said Trump reiterated his pledge to uphold the one-China policy.

“Xi Jinping emphasized that, since [the] meeting with the president at Mara-Lago, China-U.S. relations have achieved important outcomes,” China Central Television reported, referring to Xi’s meeting with Trump in Florida in April. “At the same time, bilateral relations have been affected by some negative factors. China has expressed its position to the U.S.”

Neither the television report nor the government

statement mentioned the tensions over the South China Sea.

China’s military vowed Monday to step up its air and sea patrols after the USS Stethem sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, part of a chain of islands China claims and controls. It was the second such U.S. operation near Chinese-controlled islands in six weeks.

U.S. officials tried to portray the patrol near the Paracel Islands chain as a routine, planned maneuver, but China’s Defense Ministry said its armed forces had dispatched two frigates, a minesweeper and two fighter jets to warn the Stethem away. The Stethem, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, is based in Japan.

The Paracels are among a group of islands and atolls in the South China Sea at the heart of ongoing tensions in Southeast Asia. China claims full sovereignty over the sea and has built military facilities on some islands.

China’s Defense Ministry said the United States has “seriously damaged strategic mutual trust” between the two countries by entering what it claimed were China’s territorial waters, while the country’s Foreign Ministry accused the United States of staging a “serious political and military provocation.”

The White House, under Presidents Trump and Barack Obama, has seen the militarization of the South China Sea as a threat to stability in the resource-rich region, where ships from numerous countries have long fished.

NORTH KOREA THREAT

Trump late Monday called on China to help with North Korea after reports that the North had launched a ballistic missile that landed in the Sea of Japan.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the launch was made from North Phyongan province on North Korea’s west coast, just south of the China border. Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary told reporters the missile was fired around 9:40 a.m. Japan time this morning and flew for 40 minutes.

Trump wrote in two consecutive tweets: “Hard to believe that South Korea and Japan will put up with this much longer. Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!”

Trump and his top aides have done little to hide their irritation over what they see as the reluctance by China, North Korea’s main economic partner, to use its influence to slow or halt North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Until recently, American officials had been describing China as a partner in their strategy to prevent North Korea from developing the ability to strike the U.S. mainland with nuclear weapons. While China has agreed to North Korean sanctions, it is wary of measures that could cause the regime’s collapse, fearing that would send refugees into China and leave a united, U.S.-backed Korea on its border.

Asked about the state of ties, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Monday that it was normal to encounter “some issues in the process of developing the bilateral relationship.”

China’s U.N. ambassador also addressed the situation on Monday, saying that if tensions escalate further with North Korea, “the consequences would be disastrous.”

Liu Jieyi expressed hope that key nations will support China’s proposal to de-escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

He reiterated at a news conference that an important part of the proposal is “suspension for suspension,” which would see North Korea halt nuclear and missile testing, and the United States and South Korea stop military exercises. North Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Kim In Ryong said last week that North Korea and the United States came closer to nuclear war than ever before over joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises in April and May.

Liu, who holds the Security Council presidency this month, said China’s threepart proposal — suspension-for-suspension, achieving denuclearization along with “a security mechanism for the Korean Peninsula at the same time,” and replacing the armistice that ended the Korean War with a peace agreement — address all the major concerns in the region.

While Liu didn’t refer to any country when he expressed hope that “other parties will be more forthcoming” in accepting the package

China outlined, analysts said his comment appeared to be aimed at the Trump administration, which has made clear that it first wants to see signs that North Korea is starting to dismantle its nuclear and missile programs.

Liu also criticized the Trump administration’s decision to impose sanctions on the Bank of Dandong. The U.S. accuses the bank of facilitating millions of dollars in transactions to benefit North Korea’s nuclear program.

“We have always been opposed to unilateral sanctions outside the framework of the United Nations,” Liu said. “We do not see that as the right thing to do.”

The sanctions sever the bank entirely from the U.S. financial system, pending a 60day review period. The bank is based in Dandong, China’s largest city on the border with North Korea, and its estimated $10.7 billion in assets are comparable in size to Arkansas’ Home BancShares.

However, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan praised the sanctions, according to Kyodo News.

Trump spoke for 35 minutes on Monday with Abe about North Korea. They highlighted “their unity with respect to increasing pressure on the regime to change its dangerous path,” the administration said.

The Japanese news agency said Trump and Abe agreed to discuss the North Korean situation with South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Germany, which starts Friday.

SIDELINE TALKS AT G-20

Trump and Xi are also expected to meet privately during the G-20 summit. It will be one of at least nine meetings the U.S. president will have with foreign leaders while in Hamburg, including a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines in Hamburg.

Russia isn’t expecting any immediate breakthroughs at the first meeting between the two presidents, though Russia hopes the two leaders can get off to a good start that lets them begin tackling thorny issues, Putin’s top foreign policy aide said.

“We understand that it’s complicated, that relations with Russia have become hostage to the internal political squabbles in the U.S., but so what? It’s hard for us too. But we want to and will work together with America,” Putin adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Monday. “Relations have to be taken out of the state they’re currently in.”

Putin and Trump plan to discuss the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine and the fight against terrorism as well as a dispute over Russian diplomatic property seized in December, the official said.

Putin’s hopes of improved ties promised by Trump before the election have run into fierce resistance in Washington, as the U.S. president grapples with investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Obama administration in December expelled 35 Russian diplomats and shut down two diplomatic compounds outside New York and Washington in retaliation for the Kremlin’s interference — properties the Russian government wants back.

Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, met with Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon on Monday to discuss the two presidents’ meeting as well as “areas of mutual concern,” the State Department said in a statement. Russia canceled planned talks last month between Shannon and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov in Russia in response to the U.S. expansion of sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine.

The tone of two leaders’ first face-to-face encounter will be critical, Ushakov said, noting that no specific agreements have yet been prepared.

“As I see it, the atmosphere itself of the meeting can allow us to resolve many issues, including cooperation in the international field and bilateral topics,” he said. “It’s really important. Everyone is waiting for it.”

White House officials said Trump would also reiterate the U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article 5 during the summit. The article says an attack on one member is an attack on all — an agreement Trump endorsed last month.

The president is also expected to cite the need to develop “a common approach to Russia,” White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said.

“He’d like the United States and the entire West to develop a more constructive relationship with Russia,” McMaster said. “But he’s also made clear that we will do what is necessary to confront Russia’s destabilizing behavior.”

Trump late Monday called on China to help with North Korea after reports that the North had launched a ballistic missile that landed in the Sea of Japan.

Information for this article was contributed by Christopher Bodeen, Edith M. Lederer, Ken Thomas and Darlene Superville of The Associated Press; by Simon Denyer and Thomas Gibbons-Neff of The Washington Post; by Javier C. Hernandez, Motoko Rich, Rick Gladstone and Iris Zhao of The New York Times; and by Ilya Arkhipov and Henry Meyer of Bloomberg News.