Tense 'standoff' between Secret Service and Chinese security as 'confrontations' escalate
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China's President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump visit the Temple of Heaven in Beijing on May 14, 2026. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/Pool via REUTERS
U.S. Secret Service agents are with President Donald Trump in China this week, and reporters traveling with the president note a number of "intense confrontations" between Chinese officials and members of the U.S. delegation.
The Daily Beast reported that an agent went into a historic Beijing temple compound carrying his service weapon. The result was an “intense” half-hour "standoff" between the U.S. and China, The Telegraph's chief Washington correspondent Connor Stringer wrote on X while traveling with the president.
China's President Xi Jinping and Trump visited the Temple of Heaven in Beijing on Thursday, and with the president was his Secret Service detail. They carry guns. Such weapons are already seriously restricted in China, but they are strictly forbidden for civilians in temples, the China Justice Observer said in a 2020 report.
“The pool’s entry to the temple complex was delayed by nearly half an hour by a lengthy and increasingly intense discussion between U.S. and Chinese officials, after Chinese security refused to allow a Secret Service agent accompanying the pool to enter the temple compound with his weapon,” AFP correspondent Danny Kemp reported.
After some time, “a compromise was eventually found,” he said.
"We’ve seen several intense confrontations since being here," said Stringer.
He later added, "several times the Chinese tried to stop US reporters and staff from leaving their positions and joining the motorcade."
Reporters shouted, “We have to go! American media, let's go, go, go!”
“Be gentle, but we are going! Don't run over anybody! Do not do what they did to us," one woman with a southern accent can be heard saying in a video.
Similar incidents caused problems in 2017 during Trump's previous visit to China, The Guardian reported at the time.
In one case, there was a physical "scuffle" involving a Secret Service agent and Chinese security officials, who tried to block the military aide who was carrying the "nuclear football."
At one point, then-chief of staff John Kelly was grabbed by a Chinese official and a Secret Service agent intervened, leading to another physical altercation. China later apologized.
When former President Barack Obama visited China in 2009, he was heavily criticized for "kowtowing to the Chinese" and "acquiescing in Chinese censorship during the three-day, two-city tour," Politico reported. Part of his remarks were censored by China and "China curtailed questions from the press."
Politico reported at the time that Obama's popularity caused problems.
"The Chinese public’s interest in seeing more of Obama may be part of what led to the rocky trip: a less charismatic leader might not have made the Chinese as skittish," the report said.