Trump postpones China visit
With a U.S.-China summit on hold amid the Iran war, officials discuss new trade mechanisms during talks in Paris
Welcome back to What’s Happening in China, your weekly China brief.
Originally scheduled to take place from March 31 to April 2, Trump this week asked to postpone his visit to Beijing because of the war with Iran. Politico reported today that “The Trump administration is telling foreign officials and others that it will not reschedule a summit between the president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping until the Iran war ends.”
As we covered in last week’s newsletter, Chinese authorities were frustrated by the way summit preparations were unfolding, so it’s unlikely they were too upset by the delay.
Even with the summit on hold, both sides have been working to keep dialogue moving. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng last weekend in Paris for trade talks ahead of the now-postponed summit, discussing the possible creation of a U.S.-China “Board of Trade” and “Board of Investment” to help manage bilateral trade and investment.
As Ryan Hass, an American foreign policy analyst and Brookings scholar, notes, “Washington and Beijing now find themselves navigating relatively calm waters,” although, as he warns, “The two governments have deferred, not resolved, the underlying tensions that originally drove the relationship toward confrontation.”
Let’s jump into it.
— PC
Through the Lens
In Focus
I. Trump-Xi summit
Trump had been due in the Chinese capital at the end of this month for talks with President Xi Jinping, but has delayed his trip by several weeks to deal with the fallout from the war.
His decision last month to join Israel in strikes on Iran has plunged the Middle East into violence, pushed energy prices to years-long highs and seeded fears of global supply shortages due to Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
With Trump struggling to define how the intervention will end and traditional allies reluctant to back him, the US leader may come to China needing a diplomatic win.
“A show of US force that was meant to intimidate Beijing has instead served to puncture the illusion of US omnipotence,” said Ali Wyne, a senior adviser focusing on US-China ties at the International Crisis Group think tank.
“Unable to reopen the Strait of Hormuz alone, Washington now needs its principal strategic competitor to help it manage a crisis of its own making,” Wyne said.
Read: Trump’s Mideast muddle could play into Xi’s hands at planned summit (France 24)
II. China’s energy supply
Iran has continued to ship to China, the primary buyer of its oil, despite the war. China’s imports of Iranian crude have slipped only marginally, according to Kpler estimates, from 1.57m barrels per day in February to 1.47m barrels per day in March.
Chinese vessels operated by state-owned firms are meanwhile working to navigate the broader region. The Kai Jing supertanker diverted to pick up Saudi crude at a Red Sea port earlier this month, Chinese media outlet Caixin reported, and is set to dock in China in early April.
And even if Beijing is forced to confront an overseas supply crunch, it has quietly amassed an extraordinary hoard to mitigate the ramifications of a major shock.
Beijing does not disclose the size of its oil reserves, and estimates vary significantly. But it is widely agreed to be sitting on a massive stockpile: about 1.4bn barrels, according to Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
Read: China has been preparing for a global energy crisis for years. It is paying off now (The Guardian)
Related:
China talks up oil sufficiency as Trump seeks Beijing’s help on Hormuz (CNBC)
China oil majors resume seeking Russian oil after a 4-month halt, sources say (Reuters)
China’s fuel export ban to further tighten Asia supply (Reuters)
China–Middle East Air Cargo Recovers as Routes Shift North From Gulf Hubs (Caixin)
Chinese Airlines Hike Surcharges on Rising Jet Fuel Prices (Caixin)
III. The robots are coming
As in much of the world, AI has become part of everyday life in China. But what most excites Chinese politicians and industrialists are the strides being made in the field of robotics, which, when combined with advances in AI, could revolutionise the world of work. The technology behind China’s current robotics boom is deep learning, the mathematical engine behind large language models such as ChatGPT, which learn by discerning patterns from huge datasets. Many researchers believe that machines can learn to navigate the physical world the way ChatGPT learned to navigate language: not by following rules, but by absorbing enough data for something like human dexterity to emerge. The aim, for many technologists, is the development of humanoid robots capable of performing factory labour – work that employs hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
The resources being pumped into achieving this goal are staggering. In 2025, China announced a £100bn fund for strategic technologies including quantum computing, clean energy and robotics. Major cities have invested their own resources into robotics projects, too. There are now roughly 140 Chinese firms hoping to build humanoids. Some of the frontrunners made their debut in February, at the lunar new year festival gala, a state-choreographed spectacle loosely comparable to the Super Bowl in terms of bombast and national significance. Hundreds of millions watched as robots performed comedy sketches and martial arts routines. The speed of progress has been startling. Last year, the robots were doing a synchronised cheerleading routine. This year, they did cartwheels and parkour. The intended message was clear: the robots are coming, and China will be the nation building them.
Read: Inside China’s robotics revolution (Chang Che for The Guardian)
