Xi-Trump meeting to set course of bilateral ties: China

China today said the first meeting between its president Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump next week will chart out the course of bilateral ties amidst "profound and complicated" international situation.
Trump is scheduled to meet Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7, which has attracted global attention since Trump had vowed to unleash a trade war with China for what he said was unfair Chinese trade practices. He even went on to call Beijing a "currency manipulator", but has toned down his rhetoric after becoming the president in January.
Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told reporters that China hopes the Xi-Trump meeting will set the direction of the bilateral ties. "It will be the first meeting between the heads of state of China and the US since the new US administration took office."

Zheng said as the international situation continues undergoing "profound and complicated changes", the meeting will be of great significance to charting China-US ties in a new era, advancing the development of bilateral ties in a "healthy and stable way from a new starting point, and promoting peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and the Pacific and the world at large."
Zheng said Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan will attend a welcome banquet hosted by Trump and his wife Melania.
The presidents will exchange "in-depth views" on China-US ties and major international and regional affairs of common concern with a view to enhance understanding and cooperation.

Trump is expected to press Xi on taking action against Beijing's ally North Korea to halt its nuclear and missile programme.

The US president has said when his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was visiting Beijing that the North was "behaving very badly" and China has done little to help the US.
Zheng said the Chinese and US presidents have reached important consensus through phone conversations and letters over the past months, specially on "One china" policy, accepting Taiwan and Tibet as part of China.
Trump had to change his stand of negotiating on "One China" policy in order to have first telephone talk with Xi.

Zheng also played down Trump's concerns over US' massive trade deficit with China. He said it was a result of the global distribution of industries and the division of labour, as well as the two countries' different economic structures.
"In China-US trade, although we are running surplus in trading goods, we are on the deficit side when it comes to trading services," Zheng said.
From 2001 to 2016, American exports of services to China increased 15 times, with the US service trade surplus rising 29-fold, according to statistics from China's Ministry of Commerce.
"China does not seek a trading surplus, and it is not our intention to stimulate export through competitive currency devaluation," he said.

Zheng expressed hope that the US could relax its controls on high-tech exports, create a level-playing field and provide policy facilitation for Chinese companies investing in the United States, which could help address the trade deficit.
As the world's first and second-largest economies, the two countries have great potential to expand trade and economic cooperation, and could properly manage trade friction in line with the principle of mutual benefits and seeking win-win outcome, he said.