President Donald Trump’s three-day summit in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared seamless on the surface, marked by lavish, tightly choreographed ceremonies and public expressions of mutual interest in strengthening ties.
Behind the scenes, however, tensions were on full display between Chinese officials and the U.S. Secret Service and American journalists, according to a Fox News reporter.
Peter Doocy, the network’s White House correspondent, revealed in a series of interviews that “heated and physical clashes” took place on the periphery of Trump and Xi’s bilateral discussions.
Speaking to Fox News host Martha MacCallum on Thursday, Doocy detailed one incident — described as a “very physical standoff” — between Chinese police and Secret Service personnel at “the backdoors” of one event.
“A Secret Service officer was being prevented from taking his weapon in as part of the protective detail,” Doocy said, adding that “things have all been ironed out and as far as we know.”
The kerfuffle took place near the Temple of Heaven, a 15th century complex that Trump toured with Xi, according to a White House press pool report published on Thursday.
The AFP’s Danny Kemp noted that the American press were also temporarily blocked from accessing the temple by Chinese security officials. Chinese security initially refused a Secret Service agent accompanying the pool access to the temple as they were armed, Kemp said.
“The pool’s entry to the temple complex was delayed by nearly half an hour by a lengthy and increasingly intense discussion between US and Chinese officials,” he wrote.
In a video of the incident, one journalist can be heard griping that they are “missing history happening out there because you have us locked in this room.”
“A compromise was eventually found,” Kemp added.
In a separate interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Doocy also explained that he experienced some of the chaos, potentially due to language barriers, “first-hand.”
“I was ordered onto a bus that then immediately left with nobody on it except for me and a driver that didn’t know I wanted to get off,” he said. “After lots of shouting and pointing on the bus, and off the bus, we got where we needed to be.”
The Independent has contacted the White House and the Secret Service for comment.
It wasn’t only the president’s protective detail and reporters who had troublesome run-ins with local officials and workers; the White House was also caught up in the melee.
An unidentified White House aide was trampled by Chinese reporters during one of Trump’s sit-downs with Xi, The New York Post reported. The debacle left the staffer shaken and bruised, but not seriously injured.
The incident, captured by a cameraman, reportedly left some members of the U.S. delegation upset, with one American in the clip calling it a “s*** show.”
And, although Trump and Xi expressed a desire to improve relations between their countries, the U.S. delegation’s security precautions before leaving Beijing underscored how adversarial the relationship remains.
Before taking off on Air Force One, “US staff took all badges and pins issued by China from reporters,” Kemp reported. “They then put them (and staff burner phones) in a bin.”
