President Trump rolled out the red carpet for Xi Jinping this week for the first state visit that the Chinese leader has made since 2015.
The visit comes at an important time for both men. For Trump, the state visit comes about six weeks before the midterm elections. Xi has an important calendar ahead as well, with a key Communist Party meeting scheduled for next month that should set up a widely expected announcement next fall that Xi will rule for another five-year term.
But there were a few commitments that came out of the meetings in Washington this week and more emphasis put on pageantry.
Expectations were low for major takeaways
The U.S. says the two countries will extend by two months a trade truce that lets the U.S. access rare earth elements from China, and for China to access some advanced American semiconductor chips.
But the two delegations did not announce crucial details about two still-unformed boards of trade and investment, Boeing purchases and pending Chinese agricultural purchases.
Instead, the two men relied on cordial remarks that glossed over the significant trade and economic complaints that have driven recent tension in the U.S.-China relationship. At a state dinner of about 145 guests, Xi toasted to Trump's health and a "new chapter" in bilateral relations, while Trump highlighted the long history of commerce between both countries.
Xi "wielded many of the usual feel-good tropes of Chinese diplomacy," said Lucy Hornby, author of The Last Man, an upcoming biography on Xi, such as panda diplomacy.
In his opening remarks, Trump referenced the intertwined histories of the U.S. Marines and Chinese Communist fighters during World War II, a conflict during which "Look at the greatness that we had together fighting in World War II," he said.
"Neither side is really in a position from a domestic standpoint to work out the really complicated issues at the heart of the conflict between the two," Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the think tank New America, said.
Trump played up his personal relationship with Xi. Xi focused on geopolitics.
The two men and their delegations spent about three hours together in meetings inside the White House on Thursday, but much of the time was spent on a personal tour Trump gave to Xi of the South Lawn, lingering on the new helipad Trump has had constructed there and climbing inside the new Marine One helicopter.
Beijing views the U.S. relationship through sweeping, historical terms, with Xi invoking the "Thucydides trap" in his opening remarks on Thursday — a concept plucked from academia but is increasingly referenced by senior Chinese policymakers to describe possible conflict when a rising power threatens a declining power.
Yet China indicated it considered the visit had gone smoothly. A read-out of the Thursday meetings highlighting positive "aspirations for the future" in the relationship, and praising the diplomacy as "a significant step toward finding the right way for the two nations to coexist."
And Trump announced he is planning to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in southern China in November, and that Xi is planning to attend the upcoming G20 Leaders' Summit in Miami this December.
From Taiwan to technology, significant differences remain
Before Trump and Xi had concluded their meeting Thursday, China's state news agency issued a statement calling on the U.S. to come out against Taiwan's formal independence. The U.S. has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and it has long maintained a position of "strategic ambiguity" as to whether it would defend the self-ruled democracy militarily if China were to use force.
Sacks, the New America fellow, said China sees Trump as being pro-China, more so than anyone around him in his Cabinet and anyone in Congress, which means they think that now is a really rare window to get a deal, even a shallow deal or symbolic deal.
"Because they know there are China hardliners who want decoupling waiting in the wings. The next president, Democrat or Republican, is very likely not to be as amenable to working with Xi Jinping the way we've seen," Sacks added.
Xi raised guardrails around the development of artificial intelligence with Trump, according to China's state news agency, urging the two countries to "work together to prevent the misuse and abuse of artificial intelligence."
Trump, by contrast, has argued forcefully against regulating frontier AI, and he wrote on Truth Social before his meeting with Xi that on artificial intelligence, "I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China's position also. Our guardrail is the DOJ!"
Yet at a state dinner Thursday evening, Trump and Xi warmly praised their countries' relationship, highlighting a long history of commerce with one another.
"Whenever he meets an American president, [Xi] frames the two countries as equals who can jointly sort out global problems; whereas in meetings with leaders of other countries, especially Russia or developing countries, he talks about solidarity against the "hegemonic" U.S.," said Hornby.
Sacks said it's possible a "cooperative path" on AI has opened after U.S. and Chinese officials deliberated this week ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting. There were discussions over an information-sharing system for alerting AI incidents related to national security. It's unlikely that a deal gets formalized between Trump and Xi, but Sacks said it's still significant.
"The bar is low, but they've set up a mechanism to keep talking," Sacks said.
Was the pageantry worth it?
The red-carpet VIP treatment of the leader of the world's top competitor to American power has raised eyebrows among those who've spent their careers helping manage the U.S.-China relationship.
"This is our most difficult relationship in the world," Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to China, told NPR's Leila Fadel on Morning Edition.
"American people want their president to be polite and civil to a foreign leader, but the over-the-top flattery by President Trump of President Xi, the red carpets, the pomp and circumstance, the marching bands, President Xi is not going to be swayed by that," Burns said. "He's highly intelligent. Obviously, he is not sentimental and he's very cynical about the United States. And his government's aim is to overtake us in power."
But other observers have argued that the pomp can only help what has become a bitter and tense relationship between the world's two largest economies.
"I don't want to understate the importance of pageantry at this moment. Because things have been so toxic," said Sacks of the New America think tank. "And so the pageantry itself creates a kind of breathing space that is stabilizing."
Stability between the U.S. and China seems to be the aim of this visit for Xi, as it is for Trump. But that stability still leaves the remaining issues between the two countries, including Chinese exports of rare earth minerals, the trade truce, and to what extent the two countries agree on an off-ramp from the potentially dangerous development of AI technology.
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