White House official says US president will not avoid favourite communication source as he lands in Beijing against backdrop of Korea tensions

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Donald Trump has thumbed his nose at China’s draconian censorship regime as he touched down in Beijing on the latest leg of a 12-day east Asian tour undertaken against a backdrop of rumbling tensions on the Korean peninsula.

China was last year labelled the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom. Trump’s favourite means of communication, Twitter, is blocked across the mainland along with other western social media outlets including Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Asked by reporters onboard Air Force One whether this meant the US president would not tweet to his 42 million followers during his two-night stay in China, a senior White House official was defiant.

“No. The president will tweet whatever he wants. That’s his way of communicating directly with the American people. Why not?” the official was quoted as saying by a pooled report.



“I’m sure we’ve got the gear aboard this airplane to make it happen. But it is noteworthy that none of the major western platforms for social media are even allowed to operate in China.”

Despite that protestation, observers say Beijing is determined to offer Trump a welcome fit for an emperor in an attempt to keep the mercurial US commander-in-chief on side.



Trump landed in a cloudy Beijing at 2.49pm local time (6.49am GMT) and was whisked westwards towards the 15th-century Forbidden City for a personal tour with his Chinese host, Xi Jinping, who was recently anointed as his country’s most powerful leader since Mao.



Earlier, before flying into the Chinese capital, Trump had told South Korean lawmakers that the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, would face disaster if he continued to lead his nation down the “dark path” towards nuclear weapons. “Do not underestimate us. Do not try us,” Trump said in a direct warning to Pyongyang.



At Beijing’s Ming dynasty imperial complex, the mood was lighter as Trump was greeted by Xi – whom he hopes to persuade to further increase the pressure on North Korea – and China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan.



In an apparent attempt to underline Beijing’s desire for congenial US-China relations, Trump was shown around three of the imperial compound’s main areas: the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump and Melania Trump are greeted by flag-waving children after touching down in Air Force One. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

According to China’s official news agency, Xinhua, Trump then sat down for tea with his host in a former antiques store within the Forbidden City called the Hall of Embodied Treasures. Propaganda photographs released by Xinhua showed Trump appearing to listen intently to his Chinese host.



“With a tablet computer, Trump showed Xi and Peng video clips of his granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, singing in Mandarin and reciting ancient Chinese poems,” Xinhua reported. “Xi spoke highly of the child’s Chinese skills and said her performance deserves an “A+.”

During a 25-minute tour of a relics hospital in the same complex, officials brought out a series of valuable artefacts that were being restored. “Unbelievable,” Trump said of one. “That’s fantastic,” he commented of another. Shown a 300-year-old rosewood cabinet that had been used by one of China’s former emperors when he was a child, Trump remarked: “Good job.”

At a nearby signing ceremony Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, and one of China’s four vice-premiers, Wang Yang, reportedly signed commercial deals worth about $9bn (£6.9bn).

Finally, Trump was escorted to the Hall of Character Cultivation, where a showcase of Chinese opera had been laid on.

Trump’s tour will continue on Thursday when he will be fêted with a banquet and a series of ceremonies at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square. He is expected to address the media alongside Xi.



As Trump landed in Beijing, Chinese media reports suggested a section of the Great Wall near the capital was to be closed on Friday, hinting that a visit from Trump or the first lady, Melania, was on the cards.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Melania Trump, Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan in the Forbidden City in Beijing. Photograph: XINHUA/XIE HUANCHI/EPA

“Such hospitality is rarely seen in modern China,” the state-run Global Times gushed on Wednesday.

Experts say that for all the public enthusiasm for what they are calling Trump’s “state visit-plus”, Chinese officials will be nervous that he could derail its carefully laid plans with a rogue tweet sent from behind the country’s Great Firewall.

Twitter has been blocked in mainland China since 2009 as part of a sophisticated and wide-ranging Communist party attempt to stifle dissent and hobble foreign internet companies that might compete with Chinese rivals.





Since Xi took power in 2012, a crackdown on free speech and human rights has resulted in well-known bloggers and activists being jailed.

According to Agence France-Presse, Chinese internet users can be sentenced to three years in prison for writing defamatory messages that are reposted 500 times.

When it finally came, after eight hours on Chinese soil, Trump’s first tweet from the country was fulsome in its praise for his hosts:

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) On behalf of @FLOTUS Melania and I, THANK YOU for an unforgettable afternoon and evening at the Forbidden City in Beijing, President Xi and Madame Peng Liyuan. We are looking forward to rejoining you tomorrow morning! https://t.co/ma0F7SHbVU

There was a minor hiccup on the eve of Trump’s arrival after reports emerged that three US college basketball players had been arrested in China for allegedly shoplifting from a Louis Vuitton shop in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

• This article was amended on 4 December 2017. An earlier version said Trump landed in Beijing at 2.49pm (1849 GMT). It was 6.49am GMT.