By James Palmer
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.
This week, we’re previewing the highly anticipated summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press as he departs the White House in Washington on May 12.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
U.S. President Donald Trump is set to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday for a two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, marking the first visit to China by a sitting U.S. president since 2017 (during Trump’s first term).
It is tempting to assign historic significance to meetings such as these, in part because of the enduring memory of former President Richard Nixon’s transformative trip to China in 1972. In reality, U.S. presidents meet their Chinese counterparts with some regularity, and the consequences are usually routine. Even so, the current gap between visits is unusually long.
Former President Joe Biden didn’t travel to China during his term thanks to the collapse in bilateral relations following the COVID-19 pandemic. This will be Trump’s second official visit to Beijing, putting him broadly in line with his predecessors: Barack Obama made three trips while in office, George W. Bush visited four times, and Bill Clinton went once.
Xi has formally visited the United States four times in his 13 years in power, though he has met with U.S. presidents many times on the sidelines of other events.
But these summits are still opportunities, whichever side of the Pacific they’re on. In 2015, for instance, Obama and Xi agreed to a key cybersecurity deal during a state visit in Washington. So, what does each leader want from this summit?
Trump is clearly looking for some kind of signature trade or investment deal. The talks are driven primarily by the U.S. Treasury Department, and Trump is bringing a gaggle of CEOs with him. Many of the structural demands and hawkish priorities that defined his first-term China policy have disappeared, and defense and security experts within the government have been sidelined in the run-up to the summit.
Any new trade arrangement will inevitably recall the “Phase One” deal reached in 2020, in which China promised to buy $200 billion in U.S. goods and did not deliver—admittedly thanks to COVID-19. Whether China follows through this time likely matters less to Trump than the optics: He wants a symbolic number that can dominate headlines and offset his own falling approval ratings.
Notably absent from the U.S. agenda is human rights, which is a dead letter in the Trump administration; at most, negotiators may seek the release of a handful of U.S. citizens subject to Chinese exit bans. Under another administration, cybersecurity would also be on the agenda, especially after the Salt Typhoon hack sent shockwaves through Washington last year.
Xi’s priorities are somewhat different. Although tariff reductions would be welcome, they are not essential. China has weathered Trump’s trade war with relative ease, with its exports rising to a record $3.8 trillion last year. Xi is likely to pursue security concessions instead, and three areas stand out.
First, in the near term, China wants an end to the Iran war, which has strained its economy and those of its Gulf allies. In the medium term, it wants Trump to get Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to back off her position that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would justify Japanese military intervention.
Finally, in the long term, China wants a permanent change to the U.S. position on Taiwan, including an end to arms sales and even the possibility of U.S. intervention in the event of a Chinese invasion.
The first objective is unlikely to happen, at least not from Chinese pressure alone. The second is more plausible, given that Trump already called Takaichi on Beijing’s behalf last year. Still, it might not affect Tokyo’s stance: Takaichi has shown a talent for flattering Trump while sticking to her guns on policy matters.
The U.S. approach to Taiwan is the big question, and Xi enters the summit with the upper hand, if only because China has demonstrated greater willingness in the last year to turn the screws on the United States than vice versa. China’s critical minerals threats rattled the White House, leading to an abrupt de-escalation in the two sides’ spiraling exchange of retaliatory tariffs.
Xi also understands Trump’s affinity for flattery, although he cannot indulge in the overt displays of deference sometimes offered by smaller states. There won’t be any gold crowns here: It’s important for Xi’s own domestic image that he appears as Trump’s equal, if not his superior.
Trump, meanwhile, has become increasingly reluctant to deploy economic tools against China, conceding almost entirely on allowing the export of advanced artificial intelligence chips after lobbying by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. China, for its part, has become more capable of reducing its own dependencies and security weaknesses in key sectors.
But the chance of getting any substantial U.S. concession on Taiwan is low. As I’ve noted, it would be impossible to strike a credible “grand bargain,” in which the United States promises not to defend Taiwan in return for Chinese concessions. Trump’s promises alone cannot be trusted, and a binding commitment to effectively surrender Taiwan would never pass the U.S. Congress.
Even so, Beijing can score some symbolic victories. Chinese officials place extraordinary emphasis on terminology surrounding Taiwan and often interpret linguistic nuances as indicators of other countries’ political alignment. This preferred phrasing shifts over time as leaders try to show how patriotic they are.
In the early 2010s, for instance, Chinese state media bosses decided that “Taiwanese” was unacceptable in English-language coverage because using a demonym supposedly implied recognition of Taiwan as a country. Depending on the moment, Beijing may insist on referring to Taiwan as “Taiwan island,” “Taiwan province,” or “Taiwan region.”
It may be easy to get Trump to use language that reflects the Chinese position—for instance, that the United States accepts that Taiwan is part of China. This does not match the long-standing and complicated U.S. policy, which accepts that there is one China and that the Chinese Communist Party is its legitimate representative but takes no official stance on whether Taiwan is a part of China, although it acknowledges China’s position that it is.
Such a statement from Trump would cause alarm in Taipei and bipartisan pushback in Washington. Support for Taiwan is strong among Republicans, particularly in the U.S. Senate, and lawmakers have already indicated concern ahead of the summit.
It’s impossible to know whether any such backlash would matter to Trump, who could easily walk back the position next month—or never acknowledge the change in the first place.
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