China’s President Xi Jinping, center, U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (Thomas Peter/Pool Photo via AP)BEIJING (AP) – President Donald Trump set aside his blistering rhetoric in favor of friendly overtures to China on Thursday, trying to flatter his hosts into establishing a more balanced trade relationship and doing more to blunt North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
Winding down his two days in Beijing, Trump suggested that if the U.S. and China jointly took on the world’s problems, “I believe we can solve almost all of them, and probably all of them.”
In the name of furthering that relationship, Trump largely shelved his campaign complaints about China, at least in public. He focused on exhorting Beijing to help with North Korea, an effort expected to again take center stage at an international summit in Vietnam on Friday.
The Chinese rolled out a lavish welcome for the American president during his stop. Trump returned the kindness, heaping praise on China’s Xi Jinping and predicting the two powers would work around entrenched differences.
On trade, Trump criticized the “very one-sided and unfair” relationship between the U.S. and China. But unlike his approach during the campaign, when he castigated China for what he contended were inappropriate trade practices, Trump said Thursday that he didn’t blame the Chinese for having taken advantage of the U.S. in the past.