A Breezy Resort, and a Thorny Agenda, for Trump’s Meeting With Xi Jinping<br />By MARK LANDLERMARCH 14, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — When President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China sit down for their first meeting next month in Palm Beach, Fla., they may benefit from the balmy breezes<br />and tranquil views at the Mar-a-Lago resort: Relations between the United States and China are as complex and chilly as they have been since the early days of the Reagan administration.<br />He helped orchestrate a fence-mending phone call between Mr. Trump<br />and Mr. Xi last month, in which Mr. Trump pledged to abide by "one China," the four-decade-old policy under which the United States recognized a single Chinese government in Beijing and severed its diplomatic ties with Taiwan.<br />The architects of that policy — Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist,<br />and Peter Navarro, the director of the National Trade Council — wield sizable influence in the White House, though neither has made his voice heard on China, at least publicly.<br />He is heavily involved in planning the presidential visit, a senior official said,<br />and took part in a National Security Council meeting on Monday at which North Korea and China were discussed.<br />The meeting, he said, would "help defuse tensions over North Korea." China has bitterly protested the deployment of an American system<br />officially called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, designed to help South Korea shoot down incoming North Korean missiles.
