President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping arrive for an opera performance at the Forbidden City on Wednesday in Beijing. | Andrew Harnik/AP North Korea tops Trump’s China agenda Trump will also decide by the end of his five-country Asia trip whether to label North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism.

BEIJING — President Donald Trump touched down in China on Wednesday on a mission to pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping to do more to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

But first, it was time for some opera.


Trump, Xi and their wives spent much of the day in tourist mode. The Chinese government emptied the entire Forbidden City, usually teeming with thousands of visitors, so the world leaders could enjoy a private tour. And Xi treated Trump to a night of Chinese opera, complete with child acrobats.

The two presidents are expected to turn to more serious affairs on Thursday, when they participate in a series of closed-door bilateral meetings. At the top of the agenda: the threat of North Korea.

A senior administration official told reporters traveling with Trump on Air Force One that the president will forcefully urge Xi to distance China from the North Korean regime, one of its major trading partners, and take steps to compel Pyongyang to denuclearize.

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“I think the president has been clear that that is at the top of the agenda along with the severe imbalances in the U.S.-China economic relationship,” the official said.

Trump called on China and Russia to do more to contain the North Korean threat in his speech to the South Korean National Assembly just before his arrival in Beijing.

Trump’s efforts to sway Xi could complicate their friendship. Though Trump has long been a China critic, the two men have built an unlikely bond, and Trump has publicly praised Xi in recent months.

The official added that the U.S. will also use the trip to persuade China to fully comply with United Nations sanctions that restrict countries from doing business with North Korea.

“There are still some financial links that exist that should not under those resolutions. And of course China is doing much more than it’s ever done in the past,” the official said. “It’s not the time for complacency or for allowing people to slip through loopholes and for a lot of that residual activity to continue. We know that some of that activity is continuing and we’re going to work closely with the Chinese to identify that activity and end it.”

The White House also said Wednesday that Trump will decide by the end of his five-country Asia trip whether to label North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism.

In the speech earlier Wednesday at the National Assembly in Seoul, Trump made the case that it is in North Korea’s benefit to relent in its bid to become a nuclear power. But the administration has not yet seen any indication that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has any intention of changing course.

Asked what a North Korean move toward denuclearization would look like in practice, the official was blunt: “Well, we’ll certainly know it when we see it, and we’re not even catching a whiff of it right now.”

Trump’s stop in Beijing is the third leg of a five-country tour. He will continue on to Vietnam and the Philippines in the coming days.

