When Chinese language President Xi Jinping held a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump on September 24, Trump made certain Xi knew how he felt. The U.S. chief expressed no fewer than thrice within the first minute of their joint remarks that it was his “honor” – and even “nice honor” – to host Xi.
The “honor,” apparently was all Trump’s. Xi made no related expression of feeling “honored” to be hosted by the U.S. president, merely saying he was “glad” to be in Washington.
That set the tone for a gathering that was lengthy on symbolism however quick on substance. Trump was desperate to impress; Xi was all enterprise.
Trump was reportedly eager to match the lavish internet hosting he obtained throughout his go to to Beijing in Could. As Xi identified on the state dinner in Washington, it’s “unprecedented” for the Chinese language and American presidents to trade state visits in such a brief time period.
“Right this moment, President Trump and I had honest and in-depth exchanges and reached frequent understanding on many points,” Xi mentioned. “This has added new substance to the constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability, and supplied new strategic steering for China-U.S. relations.”
“The constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability” is Beijing’s new mantra for the connection – and the primary that China has efficiently gotten Washington to purchase into. The fundamental gist is that China and the US will proceed to compete – one thing Beijing has lastly admitted is occurring, after years of studiously denying any rivalry – however hold their competitors “inside bounds.”
Apart from agreeing, in precept, to not let their competitors spill into battle, although, it wasn’t instantly clear what “frequent understandings” had been reached on the summit. No main breakthroughs had been anticipated, and that turned out to be correct.
The most important deliverable was an settlement – truly reached earlier than the summit, throughout China-U.S. financial talks on September 20 – to lengthen their commerce truce via January 10. The unique deal, reached on the first Trump-Xi summit in Busan, South Korea in October 2025, noticed the U.S. decrease tariffs on Chinese language items, whereas Chinese language agreed to pause enforcement of export controls on sure vital minerals. The deal was solely good for a yr initially, and was set to run out in November.
Many consultants had predicted an extension was within the offing – if that hadn’t been the case, it was advised that there wouldn’t have been a lot cause for Trump and Xi to fulfill in any respect. However the quick size of the extension – simply two further months – was a little bit of a shock. Bessent talked about that China wanted to make good on its guarantees, suggesting that the deal might be prolonged once more if Washington is happy with what it sees. Or it might be finally scrapped.
China, in the meantime, hasn’t confirmed even that restricted extension. The official readout from the Chinese language Overseas Ministry mentioned a “new joint association” had been reached in financial and commerce discussions, however didn’t elaborate on what that deal was.
To recap: the largest sensible impression of the Trump-Xi summit was a potential settlement to barely lengthen a pause – not a cancellation – on the worst of the commerce battle. Oh, and two extra pandas for the Atlanta Zoo. That about sums up the fruits of the delicate truce presently in place between China and the US.
If the end result on commerce was a blended bag, different areas had been even murkier. There was a lot give attention to synthetic intelligence (AI) previous to the summit, particularly as U.S. AI firms themselves have begun elevating security issues. There had been options that the U.S. and China may unveil an “AI security mechanism” that may see either side notify the opposite of regarding incidents.
Trump, nevertheless, has constantly rejected any calls for extra oversight of AI – exactly as a result of he desires the US to go full velocity forward within the race in opposition to China. In a Reality Social put up, previous to the summit, Trump said that AI (which he has began referring to as “tremendous intelligence”) “might be a giant matter of dialogue, however I need to depart it precisely the place it’s. That’s China’s place additionally.”
Xi, nevertheless, was extra cautious on AI, referencing the necessity to “collectively prevented the misuse and abuse of AI,” and emphasizing that “AI should be stored below human management.” However, like Trump, his major concern was the AI race and stopping the U.S. from “guarding in opposition to” China’s AI growth via export controls and different restrictions. As James Wang famous in a current evaluation for The Diplomat, Beijing is nicely conscious of Washington’s tendency to border restrictions on Chinese language know-how as security measures.
As anticipated, Xi additionally introduced up Taiwan. He explicitly requested “the U.S. aspect” to “adhere to the proper place of opposing ‘Taiwan independence.’” A lot reporting forward of the summit held that Xi hoped to get Trump to explicitly say that the U.S. “opposes Taiwan independence.” The standard phrasing is that the U.S. “doesn’t assist Taiwan independence.” For China, an outright expression of opposition could be a key win – particularly as a result of Beijing purposefully conflates Taiwan’s ruling get together and president with “Taiwan independence forces.”
Beijing can be hoping to increase the present “pause” on U.S. arms gross sales to Taiwan to a de facto moratorium – one thing it’s tried to do prior to now, however with out success. At any time when a U.S. administration alerts openness to scaling again arms gross sales to please China, Beijing ups the stress.
Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Enterprise Council, known as the present interval the “fourth Taiwan arms sale freeze,” following “two below former President George W. Bush from 2005-2007 and 2007-2008, and one below former President Barack Obama from 2011-2015.” In all these circumstances, Hammond-Chambers argued, the “freeze” did nothing greater than embolden Beijing.
“The Trump Administration has let the fox within the henhouse. Telegraphing sensitivity to the Chinese language place on Taiwan this previous spring, Trump has empowered China to have an effect on his selections [on arms sales],” Hammond-Chambers wrote in a media launch.
There’s been no motion on the arms sale, which has been on maintain since earlier than the Could summit.
As with the Trump-Xi summit in Could, this time there was one other transient reference to an trade of views “on main worldwide and regional points together with the state of affairs within the Center East, the Ukraine disaster and the Korean Peninsula.” There was, nevertheless, no suggestion of any settlement or alignment on these points – in contrast to after the Could summit, when Trump acquired Xi to say that China opposes Iran’s growth of nuclear weapons and helps “the free movement of power” via the Strait of Hormuz.
If the precise substance confirmed little signal of convergence, you’d by no means comprehend it from the optics. Trump lauded his “actually nice friendship” with Xi and confirmed particular deference to the Chinese language president, together with personally assembly him on the tarmac upon Xi’s arrival in the US. Trump and First Girl Melania Trump additionally organized an opulent welcome ceremony, that includes musical performances and drills by 479 navy personnel and ending with a flyover by a B-2 stealth bomber and 4 F-22 fighter jets.
After the summit correct got here the state dinner attended by a who’s who listing of prime American businesspeople: OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Apple’s Tim Cook dinner, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Elon Musk of Tesla, X, and SpaceX.
Notably, although, Xi didn’t deliver his personal entourage of enterprise leaders – a marked distinction with Trump’s go to to Beijing, when he included prime CEOs in his delegation. Chatting with the New York Instances, Emily Kilcrease of the Middle for a New American Safety known as the absence of Chinese language enterprise leaders “a somewhat miserable marks of how unhealthy the connection has gotten.”
Total, the summit left the impression of a steady, constructive relationship, however there was little to again up that sentiment. Trump claimed that he and Xi had “made super strides on the problems dealing with our two international locations” – together with the “unbelievably profitable” Board of Commerce, which hasn’t truly even launched but – however as at all times, there have been no specifics.
Xi’s constructive feedback, in the meantime, had been principally forward-looking. “[T]hrough candid, in-depth, and continued dialogue, our two international locations can perceive one another higher, search frequent floor whereas shelving variations, and construct up mutual belief,” he mentioned – an aspiration, not an accomplishment.
Xi additionally emphasize the parallels between the “nice rejuvenation of the Chinese language nation” and Trump’s “make America nice once more” slogan, which he argued can “be mutually reinforcing.” Xi continued: “Our competitors needs to be a wholesome one and needs to be stored inside bounds. It needs to be a race of catching up with each other, not a wrestle wherein one both wins or loses.”
It was a considerably odd method of making an attempt to forged competitors as “win-win.” I don’t know what races Xi has been watching, however usually these have a winner as nicely – and a number of losers.
Given the shallow nature of the present period of fine emotions in China-U.S. relations, it’s telling that the commerce truce was prolonged solely till January 10 – simply lengthy sufficient to maintain relations regular via the APEC summit (to be held in Shenzhen, China from November 18-19) and the G20 summit (Miami, the US, December 14-15). Assuming Trump and Xi attend each occasions, that might arrange two further summits, for a complete of 4 in 2026 alone.
After that, all bets are off.