Trump and Xi have much to talk about in Beijing – and plenty could be left unsaid

Beijing: US President Donald Trump has landed in Beijing for his highly anticipated summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with the Iran war, trade, Taiwan and artificial intelligence the key talking points of their high-stakes meeting.

Trump was greeted by Chinese Vice President Han Zheng and other dignitaries as he stepped off Air Force One and onto a red carpet at the city’s Capital International Airport on Wednesday evening for the two-day summit.

He was welcomed by a military honour guard, a military band, and hundreds of Chinese youth waving US and Chinese flags.

Trump’s state visit to China – the first by a US president in almost a decade – comes saddled with the baggage of the Iran war, which has triggered a global energy crisis, and injected fresh tensions into the summit due to Beijing’s close diplomatic ties with Tehran as the largest buyer of its oil.

Both Trump and Xi will be seeking to stabilise their fragile trade truce secured in South Korea in October when their formal talks begin on Thursday morning at the Great Hall of the People.

There was a heavy security presence around the Four Seasons Hotel in Beijing last night as Trump’s motorcade was escorted from the city’s airport after Air Force One touched down around 8pm.

The Four Seasons will be Trump’s base for the two-day summit, in between official events and talks with Xi before he leaves on Friday.

The official proceedings include a visit to the Temple of Heaven and a banquet in the evening. Xi will host Trump for another round of talks at Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound, on Friday morning before the US president departs later that day.

Access to the hotel was blocked off well in advance of Trump’s arrival, with dozens of police officers and plain clothes officials patrolling the crossroads and surrounding streets, checking IDs and moving on people who lingered too long.

Along the nearby Liangma River front, which runs behind the hotel and is lined with restaurants and bars, small crowds gathered to try and get a glimpse of Trump’s motorcade pulling in. A few agreed to speak to this masthead.

“We welcome [Trump’s visit]. Most of Chinese people are concerned about Sino-US relations,” said Leo, 39, a Chinese government employee who was walking along the river with his family.

Reflecting on the fact this would be Trump’s first visit to China since 2017 during his first term, he predicted the US president would find a much-changed country.

“He will see a different China. China has been developing fast, especially after the pandemic. He is a businessman, quite different to other US presidents in history. However, Chinese people have always maintained a friendly and welcoming attitude toward him,” he said.

Another Beijinger, an accountant who studied in Canada where he watched Trump’s victory on election night, said he understood Trump’s appeal to voters and drew a comparison with Xi’s approach to power.

“Trump is very good at persuasion. He speaks very understandable language, and people could easily understand what he wants to deliver,” he said, wishing to remain anonymous.

“People really buy it and also [the] Chinese, we buy it. If Xi Jinping, our president, [says] we are a beautiful country ... we believe in it. What else can we choose?

“That is a kind of our system, the only thing we can do is trust our government because we do not have individual(ist) thinking, but we are very good at believing in something.”

Many analysts regard the Middle East conflict as having shifted leverage further in China’s favour since the two leaders last met on the sidelines of the APEC summit last year.

As he departed Washington for Beijing on Tuesday (US time), Trump downplayed the prospect of the war hanging over the summit talks.

“I don’t think we need any help with Iran. We’ll win it one way or the other, peacefully or otherwise,” he told reporters before boarding Air Force One.

Trump is expected to seek “wins” on trade by locking in Chinese purchases of American food and aircraft, saying he’ll be talking to Xi about trade “more than anything else”.

Other US officials have indicated the Iran war will be a key agenda item, including US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who this month urged China to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The war, launched by the US and Israel in February, has drained US military stockpiles, worsened cost-of-living pressures for Americans ahead of crucial midterm elections in November, and eroded US standing on the international stage.

“The Chinese are acutely aware that this is a major concern for the Americans, and as a result, it’s a substantial source of leverage for Beijing,” said Evan Medeiros, from the Asia Group, and a former China adviser on the Obama administration’s National Security Council.

“The question is: is Trump willing to pay whatever price Beijing puts on their Chinese co-operation on the Iran issue?”

Xi is widely expected to use the talks to emphasise China’s claims to Taiwan, and to seek to convince Trump to roll back US weapons sales to the democratic island or harden the US’s official stance towards Taiwan independence from “does not support” to “opposes”.

Trump’s visit comes days after Taiwan’s opposition-controlled parliament approved only two-thirds of a $US40 billion special defence budget to buy orders of US weapons authorised by Washington last year.

Trump has delayed signing off on another $US14 billion arms package for months, triggering speculation among analysts that it could be used as a negotiating chip.

Meanwhile, Chinese state media and officials were prefacing the US president’s arrival with strong statements about Taiwan as the most high-risk “red line” in US-China relations.

“We firmly oppose the United States engaging in any form of military ties with China’s Taiwan region, and firmly oppose the United States selling weapons to China’s Taiwan region,” Zhang Han, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Wednesday.

Accompanying Trump is a bevy of America’s top chief executives, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk and chipmaker Nvidia’s boss Jensen Huang, who was a last-minute addition to the travelling party.

He is also accompanied by family members Eric and Lara Trump and cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. One notable name absent from the travel party is first lady Melania Trump, who is not accompanying the US president.

The Trump administration is hoping to begin the process of establishing a “Board of Trade” with China to address differences between the countries. The board could help prevent the trade war ignited last year after Trump’s tariff rises, an action China countered through its control of rare earth minerals. That led to a one-year truce last October.

Despite Trump’s outward confidence, China appears to be entering the meeting from “a much stronger place”, said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser on Chinese business and economics at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

China would like to reduce tech restrictions on accessing computer chips and find ways to reduce tariffs, among other goals.

“But even if they don’t get much on any of those things, as long as there’s not a blow-up in the meeting and President Trump doesn’t go away and look to re-escalate, China basically comes out stronger,” Kennedy said.

With AP

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