Top Asian News 4:55 a.m. GMT

BEIJING (AP) — President Donald Trump has reaffirmed America's long-standing "one China" policy in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, potentially alleviating concerns about a major shift in Washington's relations with Beijing. The White House and China's state broadcaster CCTV said the two spoke at length by phone on Thursday evening. The two leaders discussed numerous topics and Trump agreed "at the request of President Xi" to honor the "one China" policy that requires Washington to maintain only unofficial ties with China's rival Taiwan, the White House said. CCTV reported that Xi "praised" Trump's affirmation and said China was willing to work with the U.S.

BEIJING (AP) — The U.S. Pacific Command says a Chinese jet and a U.S. Navy patrol plane had an "unsafe" encounter over the South China Sea this week, raising concerns. Pacific Command spokesman Robert Shuford said Friday that the "interaction" between a Chinese KJ-200 early warning aircraft and a U.S. Navy P-3C plane took place on Wednesday in international airspace over the waters. He did not say what was unsafe about the encounter. Shuford says the U.S. plane was on a routine mission and operating according to international law. He said the Department of Defense and the Pacific Command "are always concerned about unsafe interactions with Chinese military forces." The Chinese defense ministry has not responded to a faxed request for comment.

TOKYO (AP) — President Donald Trump's salvos on trade and currency are rattling Japan Inc., but many here hope Prime Minister Shinzo Abe can sell him a "win-win" package of job creation and investment when they meet this week, averting a return of the Japan-bashing of the 1980s. Abe moved early to build a personal rapport with Trump, meeting him in New York shortly after he was elected. With Japan's largest export market at stake, its businesses need him to keep at it. Japan's status as the cornerstone U.S. ally in the Pacific was reassuringly reaffirmed in a recent visit by U.S.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump had a head start building rapport at a previous meeting, and hope to build on it in Washington on Friday. But Trump's words and views don't always align with what's said in Japan: ___ TRADE — "Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax." Trump, in a tweet Jan. 6. — "We are already producing extremely large numbers of cars in the U.S. We are one of the American manufacturers, aren't we?

TOKYO (AP) — If they stick to schedule, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump will spend more time on the fairways than at the White House. After facing off on some divisive issues in Washington on Friday, they jet to Florida, where they will turn to something they have in common on Saturday: a love of golf. Trump, who operates 18 golf courses around the world and at one time even had his own show on the Golf Channel, is one of the best golfers in U.S. presidential history. Can Abe even get close? ___ HOW GOOD IS ABE?

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — It was the sound of soft sighs and cries in the half-light that first struck Cheree Morrison, and then as the dawn broke she began to see the extent of the carnage — more than 400 whales had swum aground along a remote New Zealand beach. About 275 of the pilot whales were already dead when Morrison and two colleagues found them Friday on Farewell Spit at the tip of the South Island. Within hours, hundreds of farmers, tourists and teenagers were racing to keep the surviving 140 or so whales alive in one of the worst whale strandings in the nation's history.

HONG KONG (AP) — Wong Lai-ngan hunches over a battered workbench, his electric rotary tool whining as he carves two phoenixes facing each other into a smooth white tusk. Decades ago, Wong's canvas would have been elephant ivory. But since a 1990 ban on international trading, Hong Kong's dwindling tribe of ivory carvers has switched to tusks of extinct woolly mammoths. The decline of the city's once-flourishing ivory business is set to speed up after the Hong Kong and mainland Chinese governments announced in December plans to restrict local ivory trading. Wildlife activists hailed the news, saying domestic markets must be phased out to reduce the demand for tusks driving an epidemic of poaching that is decimating Africa's elephants.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — U.S. officials stopped screening refugees held on Nauru for potential resettlement in the United States this week but will return to the Pacific atoll to continue working toward a deal that President Donald Trump has condemned as "dumb," an Australian minister said Thursday. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would not say when U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials would return to Nauru to conduct what Trump describes as "extreme vetting." Trump made enhanced screening a condition for agreeing to honor an Obama administration deal to accept up to 1,250 refugees refused entry into Australia. Australia pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to keep more than 2,000 asylum seekers — mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka — in conditions condemned by rights groups.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Seven people were killed in a landslide on the tourist island of Bali that wiped out several homes, Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency said Friday. The agency said in a statement that the landslide in Bangli district was caused by sustained torrential rains. Members of two families were among those killed including a 1-year-old boy, his 7-year-old brother and their mother. Two people were hospitalized with severe injuries and two others suffered minor injuries. The agency said more heavy rains are likely in Bali and people should be aware of the possibility of landslides and floods. The resort island is Indonesia's best-known tourist destination and famous for its Hindu culture, white beaches and lush green interior.

ROME (AP) — The World Health Organization says China has taken steps to end its once-widespread practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners but that it's impossible to know what is happening across the entire country. At a Vatican conference on organ trafficking this week, a former top Chinese official said the country had stopped its unethical program, but critics remain unconvinced. In an interview Thursday, WHO's Jose Ramon Nunez Pena said he personally visited about 20 hospitals in China last year and believes the country has reformed. But he acknowledged that it was still possible "there may still be hidden things going on." China has more than 1 million medical centers, although only 169 are authorized to do transplants.