NO SITTING American president has greeted a foreign leader arriving in Washington at the airport for 64 years. But when Xi Jinping arrived in the city on September 23rd, he was greeted not only by Donald Trump but also a level of pomp and circumstance far in excess of anything offered by China during Mr Trump’s reciprocal visit to Beijing in May. It also stood in contrast to the paucity of the agenda, with little sign of progress on a litany of issues.
The lopsided pageantry reflects Mr Trump’s eagerness to preserve stable ties with Mr Xi, whom he described as “strong, vibrant and fit”.
The only other new agreement announced by the end of the first day of talks was for China to provide two giant pandas to a zoo in Atlanta. Mr Trump hosted a state dinner for Mr Xi on the evening of September 24th, with a private tea at the White House and a tour of the National Archives the following day. In the end, the two sides agreed to a paltry two-month extension, expiring on January 10th. American officials grumble about China’s compliance with the trade truce, which also included commitments to stop the flow of chemicals used to make fentanyl, a drug that causes tens of thousands of deaths in America, and to buy more American soyabeans. In America, where debates over artificial intelligence have intensified in recent weeks, some advocates of AI safety had hoped that Mr Trump and Mr Xi might come to an agreement that would increase scrutiny of models or even slow down the pace of progress. Perhaps most striking has been Mr Trump’s scant interest in matters of security and defence, issues that have at times dominated the Sino-American relationship. Iran appears to have used Chinese satellite images to target strikes in the Middle East, including an attack on Jordan in July that killed three American troops. Mr Trump played down those accusations. “When they say China spies on us, I say you’re right and we spy on them too. China has also sharply increased dredging, air and naval activity around disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea, as well as escalating military activity around Taiwan.
Chinese exports of rare earths to America have hovered around 500,000kg per month for the past year, far lower than the pre-truce level. China wanted to extend the truce, which was due to end in November, until the end of Mr Trump’s tenure. On November 10th China is also due to expand restrictions on rare earths to cover new elements, including erbium, which is used in fibre-optic cables.
Scott Bessent, America’s treasury secretary, said that he would use the extension to press China for “more fulsome” implementation. He later added that America was also considering a “bigger” deal that China had proposed. Others wanted Mr Trump to push back on China’s so-called “distillation” of American AI, which involves taking the output of one model to improve another. Instead, Mr Trump said on September 24th that artificial intelligence—or “Super Intelligence” as he now calls it—would be a “big topic” but that both he and Mr Xi were content to “leave it exactly where it is”. Mr Xi said later that the two sides should maintain human control of AI and continue their dialogue on the subject. “They basically do what we do,” he said. At the summit, Mr Xi urged America to “adhere to the correct position of opposing” Taiwan’s independence, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency.
But the main achievement of this week’s summit appears to be an extension of the economic truce that America and China reached last year, ending a tit-for-tat spat in which China wielded rare-earth export controls to strike back against Mr Trump’s tariffs.
In his first term, Mr Trump filled his administration with officials who crafted a new policy consensus on China in Washington, one that involved a far more muscular and competitive approach than what had come before. The Biden administration embraced and built on that consensus and American attitudes to China hardened steadily. In his second term, Mr Trump has disavowed his own legacy, adopting softer positions on issues such as semiconductor exports to China and American commitments to Taiwan. American public opinion also seems to be shifting. A period of calm suits both sides. Mr Trump is preoccupied with a war in Iran and looming midterm elections. Mr Xi is concerned by a slowing economy and next year’s quinquennial Communist Party congress .
Speaking at the White House, Mr Xi invited 100,000 young Americans to visit China to study over the next five years.
A recent poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs shows that 57% of Americans would prefer “friendly co-operation and engagement” against 40% who want America to contain Chinese power, a turnaround from the trend over 2020 to 2024. On September 23rd Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, said that America’s aim in Asia was to secure “a decent peace”, one in which it would ensure access to trade but would not “dominate” Asia. It would show a “respectful attitude towards Beijing”, he added. And it was no bad thing, Mr Colby said, that each side believed it had the upper hand over time: “Let’s have a spirited competition…that doesn’t result in a large war. China wants to “use the next few years to consolidate its rise and reach what one might call escape velocity in its competition with Washington,” observes Rush Doshi, who oversaw China policy in the Biden administration.
