President Donald Trump is heading to Asia on Friday for his first trip this term to the continent, where he’s expected to try to strike investment deals, work through trade talks and further some peace efforts.

With a military purge in Beijing before a major political meeting this week some analysts ask: whom can leader Xi Jinping trust?

Trump's Asia summit tour includes meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other regional leaders as trade tensions with Beijing escalate.

The officials were accused of major financial crimes, sparking intense speculation about instability within Xi Jinping’s regime. Reports suggested that President Xi might be under internal pressure after loyalists were removed from power.

After President Xi Jinping ousted a group of top generals whose careers overlapped for decades, state media accused them of “severely undermining” the Communist Party’s highest echelons of authority.

Nearly one in six officials who had Central Committee seats were absent from a major conclave, many of them now disgraced.

Xi Jinping seems to believe that only his continued rule can secure China’s rise. But as he ages, choosing a successor will become riskier and more difficult.

Tensions between the U.S. and China escalated in the weeks leading up to a possible meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping