All eyes on Trump-Xi summit as expectations remain low
With a broad agenda spanning trade, Taiwan, Iran, and AI, both sides prepare for talks in Beijing with modest expectations
Welcome back to What’s Happening in China, your weekly China brief.
While the Chinese side hasn’t confirmed it yet (not unusual), all signs point to the Trump–Xi two-day summit in Beijing, scheduled for May 14–15, going ahead, with U.S. officials and security vehicles spotted recently in the capital in preparation for the event.
On trade, it’s likely the two sides will announce new commercial deals, with the U.S. reportedly bringing a smaller CEO delegation than in 2017, including CEOs from Nvidia, Apple, Exxon, and Boeing, according to Semafor. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has also mentioned creating a “Board of Trade” as a tool to help manage bilateral trade.
Taiwan—“I think both countries understand that it is in neither one of our interests to see anything destabiliz(ing) happen in that part of the world,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week—will be on the agenda. The Iran war—the U.S. announced new sanctions today on Chinese companies for helping Tehran—and the AI race are also likely to feature, alongside lower-stakes issues such as prisoner swaps and tourist and journalist visas.
“We are working together smartly, and very well,” Trump declared in mid-April, but expectations for the summit remain low, even for the “big, fat hug” he said the Chinese leader would give him when they met.
Let’s jump into it.
— PC
Through the Lens
In Focus
I. Trump-Xi Beijing summit
[Trump] will arrive at a time when the US and China are competing for dominance in trade and technology as well as global influence. Last October, Xi and Trump met in South Korea and agreed to a truce in their trade war, with the US unwinding tariffs that had hit 145 per cent after Beijing squeezed the supply to the US of critical minerals needed to manufacture high-tech products.
China’s ability to counter the US tariff onslaught marked an important moment in the strategic competition between rising superpower and incumbent hegemon — shattering the image of an omnipotent US. “It’s certainly not the case that the US, as our president likes to put it, holds all the cards. That era is gone, I would say for ever,” says Victor Shih, a professor of Chinese political economy at the University of California, San Diego.
Some US officials say both sides are now pursuing “strategic stability” to buy time to work on their weak spots — including rare earths for the US and semiconductors for China. But others have disparagingly dubbed it “strategic deference” on the part of the US, and worry that Washington is abrogating its role in securing the world order against growing authoritarianism led by Xi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
American allies in Asia are especially anxious that Trump — who at that encounter with Xi in October described the Chinese president as “a friend of mine, really for a long time now” — might concede ground on regional security, especially on Taiwan, which Beijing regards as its territory. Trump has at times seemed ambivalent about Taiwan despite its importance to the US and its allies as a strategic bulwark in the western Pacific and its dominance of the advanced semiconductor industry.
If Trump can convince Xi to continue the trade truce and make large purchases of American agricultural products, these would be “important accomplishments”, says Nick Burns, former US ambassador to China under Biden and now a professor at Harvard Kennedy School.
Read: Trump, Xi and the bid for a ‘grand bargain’ between superpowers (Financial Times)
Related:
Iran focus at Trump-Xi summit may delay progress on tariffs, rare earths (CNBC)
‘The biggest China dove in the administration’: Trump to test limits of dealmaking in Beijing (Politico)
China urges US to drop trade probe as key Trump-Xi summit approaches (SCMP)
Trump’s Board of Trade Move Signals the U.S. has Given Up on Changing China (The Wire China)
China’s top diplomat highlights stable ties with the US (AP)
What will happen when Trump meets Xi? (Brookings)
Trump’s China Trap (Michael Kovrig, Foreign Affairs)
Freedom House Experts on What Trump Should Discuss with Xi in Beijing (Freedom House)
II. Xi’s military purge
In a stunning move amid a continued purge of its military, China on Thursday gave two former defense ministers suspended death sentences for corruption.
Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu were both convicted of bribery and given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve by the country’s military court, according to state media. The court announced that the two former generals’ sentences will be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole after two years.
Wei, 72, served as defense minister from 2018 to 2023. Li, 68, succeeded Wei and held the position for less than eight months in 2023. Both men were placed under investigation by the military’s anti-graft arm in 2023.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has taken his purge of the armed forces to the very top, most recently targeting his highest-ranked general with the removal in January of Zhang Youxia, who outranked Wei and Li and once oversaw the military’s day-to-day operations.
Read: China gives suspended death sentences to former defense ministers (CNN)
Related:
Two former Chinese defense ministers handed death sentence with reprieve for graft (Xinhua)
How China’s Leader Lost Faith in His Generals (The New York Times)
III. “Taiwan outfoxes China”
Lai’s trip to Eswatini was a display of his “fighting character,” but risked “being seen as irresponsible from a national-security perspective,” said James Yifan Chen, who teaches international relations at Taiwan’s Tamkang University.
Chen noted the risks of traveling on a foreign-operated plane and inviting potential Chinese retaliation.
The last-minute trip cancellation, meanwhile, was a sign of China’s influence, Chen said. “The African continent has a total of 54 countries and currently only Eswatini maintains diplomatic relations with our nation,” he said. “Clearly, our engagement with Africa is far weaker than that of mainland China.”
Read: Taiwan Outfoxes China in Test of Wills Over Tiny African Country (WSJ)
Related:
