President Trump was struck by the beauty of the roses in the Zhongnanhai Garden as he and Xi Jinping toured the latter’s executive compound in Beijing on Friday.
“These are the most beautiful roses anyone’s ever seen! I asked the president, ‘Could you get me some for the Rose Garden?’ and he said yes. I’ve never seen roses so big!” Trump declared during his final day of the historic trip.
Xi, speaking via a translator, was explaining the site’s history and promised to send seeds to Trump after his enthusiastic praise.
“We will provide the president with some of our Chinese rose (Rosa chinensis) seeds, as he wants to plant some in the rose garden,” a translator said, according to the press pool report.
“I love that. That’s great,” Trump replied.
Xi told Trump that Zhongnanhai, a 1500-acre compound, is “the place where leaders of the party central government of China work and live, including myself.
“After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, we have been here, including Chinese leaders: Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and so on.”
Pictures showed Trump marveling at the former imperial garden — and Xi even urged him to touch the trees — as the tour was underway.
“On our way in, we stayed to look at some of the old trees. One of them is 490 years old. In other places within this compound, there have been trees that have lived to be over 1,000 years old,” Xi said, describing the tour.
“The President was interested in learning all about that, including the Chinese roses, which we looked at. And I’ve agreed to send the seeds for these roses to the President as a gift.”
Trump was impressed, describing the compound as a “nice place.”
Xi invited Trump to the highly-secretive compound, which has been center of Chinese power since the end of the civil war in 1949, as a way of thanking the President for his hospitality at Mar-a-Lago back in 2017 — a visit that took place months into Trump’s first term.
Mao’s Communists defeated the Kuomintang and he opted to use Zhongnanhai to project power over the imperial palace.
He believed it was more compatible with the Communist belief of “serving the people.”
Only a handful of US leaders have set foot into the highly guarded site, which is considered China’s White House, since Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China, where he met Mao.
Xi held talks with former President Barack Obama in the compound, which is located 13 miles east of Tiananmen Square, in November 2014, and George W. Bush visited the site during a 2002 visit, meeting then-president Jiang Zemin.
Obama was treated to a tour of the Yingtai artificial island — which was used to jail the Guangxu Emperor in 1898. The emperor spent 10 years under house arrest before his death.
There was one moment where Xi appeared to taunt Trump when the Chinese strongman mentioned Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously visited.
“Can I ask the president.. does he bring them here?” Trump asked.
“Very few,” Xi replied. “We usually don’t hold diplomatic events here.
“Even after we started having some, it’s still extremely rare. For example: Putin.”
Putin’s pal, Alexander Lukashenko — the President of Belarus — met with Xi on June 4 last year on what was the dictator’s 15th visit to China.
Trump and Xi enjoyed talks over tea as they sat inside an ornate pavilion.
Body language expert Lillian Glass told The Post the way the leaders’ feet were positioned during their sitdown was a big “tell” regarding the overall success of the summit.
Trump spoke warmly about his “friend” Xi — and invited him and his wife to The White House in September.
“You’re gonna walk away hopefully very impressed, like I’m very impressed with China,” he told Xi.
The President is now en route back to the US, but before he left China, he and Xi enjoyed a lavish spread of kung pao chicken and scallops.
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