After an hour of scheduled “closed-door” one-on-one “private” discussion between President Trump and President Xi, the leaders of both nations reassemble with their delegations for discussions between the larger groups.
Beijing Schedule: At 10:40am (local) / 9:40pm (U.S. Eastern) President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping lead an expanded bilateral meeting with their respective emissaries of trade, finance and national security.  (Video of initial remarks)

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(Pool Report) The meeting took place in an elaborately adorned room in the Great Hall of the People.  The US and Chinese delegations faced each other at a pair of long tables. Trump and Xi sat in the middle of the table. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and US ambassador to China Terry Branstad stay on either side of Trump. Trump and Xi both spoke for a few minutes.
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While President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping are conducting official state business, First Lady Melania Trump and China’s first lady Madame Pen Liyaun visit a Beijing, China, Art and Design School.
*Geopolitical Note* The messaging here is toward U.S. trade sanctions on intellectual property theft by Chinese companies.  The intended objective here is to show they have the capability to create their own design ideas.  Theft of trademark products, and the re-manfacturing of those falsely branded products, is a huge part of China’s black-market economy and a large part of the ongoing U.S. led trade sanctions review.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping is hosting a welcoming for U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. For the first time in history this event will be broadcast live on Chinese State TV.  Anticipated start time 8:30pm (U.S. Eastern Time)
For additional perspective, the first livestream below is the actual livestream the Chinese People will be permitted to watch:
UPDATE: Video Added – **NOTE** This was a historic first-ever live broadcast of a Chinese President welcoming a U.S. President at the official ceremony.  The pageantry was the highest level China presents in public display honoring any visiting head of state; and U.S. Media never carried it.  Let that sink in.

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A compensating shift amid a modern era of communication.

Communist Beijing generally considers uncontrolled communication a potential threat; however that’s why they elevated President Xi Jinping – to navigate this modern era reality.  It is largely the responsibility of Xi to retain control yet provide the optics of free engagement.  Within that dynamic President Xi is allowing the broadcast of the welcoming ceremony – again, predictably, with very tight production controls anticipated.

In a rare and unprecedented step, President Donald Trump’s official ceremonial welcome at the Great Hall of the People will be broadcast live today on national television throughout China, state broadcaster CCTV said.  The event is scheduled for a broadcast at 8:20pm (U.S. EST).  However, in keeping tight control – the more hazardous (11:30pm) press conference will not be carried.
President Trump knows the game, check out his twitter banner image to see POTUS showcase the production quality of propaganda.
Overview of events: In the morning, [9:20am (local) / 8:20pm (U.S. EST)] President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will participate in a welcome ceremony with President Xi Jinping of the Peoples Republic of China and Madame Peng Liyuan.
The President will then have a restricted bilateral meeting with President Xi, before having an expanded meeting. Following the meetings, the President will attend a business event with President Xi.
In the afternoon, the President will deliver a joint press statement with President Xi (scheduled for 11:30pm U.S. Eastern).  Later, the President will meet with Premier Li Keqiang of the Peoples Republic of China. The President and First Lady will then participate in an embassy meet and greet.
In the evening, the President and the First Lady will participate in a State Dinner receiving line, followed by a state dinner and cultural performance.
Schedule Below:
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As CTH provides an overview of President Trump’s historic visit to communist China the majority of our review is toward the geopolitical aspects.  China is a communist nation; many people forget that.  China’s central command and control authority goals are to dominate the globe with a disposition that China is the world’s center.

Therefore the optics and presentations from Beijing contain more audiences, and more nuance, than what is customary in a state visit with a non-adversarial free society.
China, Xi Jinping and Beijing’s communist old guard, approach the U.S. presidential visit from a dynamic unfamiliar to most U.S. observers and political watchers.  There are multiple audiences, internally and externally for China, being managed in this visit.   Additionally, the engagement with President Trump and First-Lady Melania Trump is both cultural and political.
Despite the complexity of the dynamic it is possible to locate indicators within this controlled script that later allows us to analyze the U.S. and Chinese engagement as future events present.   These important reviews of how Beijing is controlling the visit are not related to personal relationship dynamics or disrespect toward the U.S. President. The considerations are about the politics not the personality.
The personality of the participants may change; but the dynamic of the politics, the geopolitical face, presented by Beijing toward their ongoing goals and objectives, will remain constant for many years.  For our endeavors, it is the dynamic of the geopolitical face that becomes more important.  We are looking beyond the mask; whether it’s a panda mask or a dragon mask, it matters not. It’s always a mask. [Hope that makes sense.]
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President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet complete with marching band and joyful children for the arrival of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.
However, there will be strict controls on U.S. and Western media, so don’t expect too much unchecked communication; as well as expansive control over the optics of the general Chinese population. Beijing’s old guard will not want the optic of too warm a welcome from the uncontrolled population toward their primary geopolitical adversary.

Schedule:
2:40pm (Local) / 1:40am (U.S. Easern) THE PRESIDENT and THE FIRST LADY arrive at Beijing Airport, Beijing, Peoples Republic of China
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President Donald Trump delivered a historic speech to the South Korean National Assembly in Seoul. Amid escalating tensions with North Korea, President Trump outlined his views, policy and perspective for the regional partners while calling for North Korea to reevaluate its path.

[WHITE HOUSE] PRESIDENT TRUMP: Assembly Speaker Chung, distinguished members of this Assembly, ladies and gentlemen: Thank you for the extraordinary privilege to speak in this great chamber and to address your people on behalf of the people of the United States of America.
In our short time in your country, Melania and I have been awed by its ancient and modern wonders, and we are deeply moved by the warmth of your welcome.
Last night, President and Mrs. Moon showed us incredible hospitality in a beautiful reception at the Blue House. We had productive discussions on increasing military cooperation and improving the trade relationship between our nations on the principle of fairness and reciprocity.
Through this entire visit, it has been both our pleasure and our honor to create and celebrate a long friendship between the United States and the Republic of Korea.
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Tonight President Donald Trump will address the national assembly in Seoul, South Korea amid ongoing tensions with North Korea and regional allies over its nuclear program.  This speech is considered one of the most important policy speeches of the trip as President Trump is speaking directly to the National Assembly in the Republic of Korea.
The speech is scheduled at approximately 11:05am (local) / 9:05pm (U.S. EST)
WH Livestream Link – RSBN Livestream Link – Alternate (PBS) Livestream Link

At the conclusion of the speech (12:05pm / 10:05pm) the President and First Lady will participate in a wreath laying ceremony at Seoul National Cemetery prior to departing for China.
[1:25pm / 11:25pm departure from Pyeongtaek, Republic of Korea en route to Beijing.]
[2:40pm / 1:40am Arrival in Beijing, Peoples Republic of China.]
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Those who have followed the Chinese strategy of President Trump will note strong signals of success therein amid an advanced visit ground report from Reuters News Service.
BACKDROP – From the outset the Trump administration displayed a very specific strategy where respect toward China’s leadership was coupled with visible praise for their business acumen and kind words toward the culture of the Chinese people.
This became evident in Mar-a-largo when Prime Minister Xi Jinping and President Trump spent a weekend getting to know each other.
While the surface impression of the relationship is geopolitical adversaries, President Trump has also positioned himself inwardly toward the Chinese people as a modern counter cultural figure not concerned with political correctness and not ashamed of his business success.   This approach is intensely well received in the bamboo forest.
In a culture where the political and sociological influences have historically presented an outlook of affluence and influence as the measure of success, the image of unabashed and unapologetic opulent Trump represents the external personification of this perspective.
Quite simply, it becomes impossible for China’s control authority to ridicule a successful businessman -now influential politician- when they have been selling that image as an honorable goal for decades amid their own culture. The timing is remarkable in consequence.
Simultaneous to this impression, and in a very methodical plan to counter the expansive influence of China, President Trump has used the scale of the U.S. economy to create massive changes in geopolitical economic landscape.
While Trump’s Grandkids sing sweet Mandarin Chinese songs to Xi Jinping and Peng Liyaun (Xi’s wife and herself a cultural icon), he has simultaneously cultivated a powerful counter-leverage position with India’s Prime Minister Modi. In essence, President Trump has positioned himself -and as a consequence the United States- as a powerhouse to be courted by both sides.
India and China are direct and consequential economic adversaries.  President Trump has maneuvered our own U.S. economic policy into the position where that competitive dynamic is now leverage for U.S. economic engagement, trade deals, national security and long-term interests.
It is not coincidental that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson first injected the term “Indo-Pacific” into the geopolitical lexicon of U.S. policy.   It’s a brilliant strategy and paying huge dividends. Bigly.
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As any interested geopolitical observer will undoubtedly note, the Trump administration is systematically deconstructing the capability of multinational corporate interests to continue their decades-long exploitation of political and economic control.
Within that geopolitical battle President Donald Trump assembled a team of the sharpest, smartest and most patriotic U.S. economic insiders any administration has ever put together.  These are, quite frankly “the killers” President Trump talked about during the campaign.
The killers, dragon slayers amid the big and consequential battles, are, as an outcome of their intended objective, an existential threat to the influence of globalists who have held exclusive multinational economic control and influence for the past 30+ years.
Chief among the team is Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross; a multi-billionaire in the strata of trade and finance, who, like Trump and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, set aside his own life of wealth accumulation and went to work on behalf of team ‘America-First’.  The goal of Ross is to deconstruct and restructure international trade agreements which have been killing the American middle-class for decades.   In that role, Wilbur Ross is a preeminent threat.
It cannot be overstated how effective the America-First team are in carrying out their strategy.  USTR Robert Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross are crushing their globalist opponents.
On virtually every continent the state actors within the multinational systems are reacting to the tectonic changes in geopolitical economics. India, China, Russia, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Mexico, South America, Africa, Australia and the larger economies within the ASEAN nations are all changing or reversing their economic positions specifically because there’s a new head at the table of influence commanded by President Donald J Trump.
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