In Beijing, Trump Walks Into Xi’s Home Game

Security has been tightened around Tiananmen Square for days. A state banquet is planned, along with a visit to the Temple of Heaven. China, theBBC reports, is ready to put on a show. Whether the spectacle translates into substance is the question hanging over this week's Trump-Xi summit — the first meeting of its kind on Chinese soil in nearly a decade.

Most analysts expect the two leaders to leave Beijing with a narrow set of manageable outcomes rather than any fundamental reset. Writing ahead of the visit, Atlantic Council senior director Melanie Hart described both governments as simultaneously enmeshed in each other's economies and working to escape that enmeshment — a contradiction that makes the relationship resistant to either clean rupture or genuine partnership. TheBBC frames it more bluntly: this summit could set the groundwork for future cooperation — or conflict — in the years ahead.

What it almost certainly will not do is resolve the structural tensions that have defined the relationship for years.

The economic dimension has dominated the run-up. Trade negotiators have shuttled through Geneva, London, Stockholm, Madrid, Kuala Lumpur and Paris since May last year, with a seventh round opening in Seoul on Tuesday — running directly ahead of Trump's Beijing arrival.Beijing's official commentary has framed this drumbeat of talks as proof that both sides understand economic coordination to be one of the relationship's essential stabilizers.

An extension of the tariff ceasefire agreed at October's Busan meeting is widely expected. TheBBC notes that a February Supreme Court decision limiting Trump's unilateral tariff powers has also helped cool the most volatile trade instincts on the US side. A separate government-to-government framework for reducing tariffs in commercially low-risk sectors is taking shape, according to theAtlantic Council — deliberately narrow in scope, sidestepping the harder structural questions about China's economic model that Washington has raised for years.

Chinese commitments to buy US agricultural products and aircraft are also expected. The Atlantic Council urges caution: similar pledges under the first Trump administration's Phase One deal were never fully delivered. TheBBC adds that Beijing will use the talks to pressure Washington to drop a recent trade probe into unfair Chinese business practices — one that could give Trump the authority to reimpose higher tariffs. Brookings Institution scholar Michael O'Hanlon told the BBC that conceding that probe would be difficult given how widespread China's distorting trade practices remain.

Beyond tariffs, a deeper contest over technology is playing out beneath the summit's surface. TheBBC describes an emerging AI cold war, with the White House accusing Chinese companies of large-scale theft of American AI models while Beijing has moved to block US firms from acquiring Chinese AI startups. Brookings researcher Yingyi Ma told the BBC the real competition is not over who copies whose model, but over the talent capable of building the next generation of frontier AI systems.

Into this context, Beijing is expected to press for relaxed US export controls on advanced semiconductors — the chips Chinese companies need to power their AI and robotics ambitions. TheAtlantic Council is unambiguous on this point: technology export controls are security instruments, not trade concessions, and should not be placed on the same negotiating table as soybean purchase agreements. If Beijing succeeds in linking commodity purchases to technology access, the headline numbers will flatter a result that actually weakens the US position.

China processes around 90% of the world's rare earth minerals, and theBBC describes this dominance as Beijing's own Strait of Hormuz — a chokehold it can activate at will. The implicit deal on the table is rare earth access in exchange for chips. Whether Washington should accept that trade is precisely the kind of question the Atlantic Council warns against resolving with short-term headline optics in mind.

The minerals question is further complicated by a credibility gap left over from Busan. TheAtlantic Council notes that Washington and Beijing produced contradictory accounts of what was pledged on rare earth export controls after that meeting — Washington claiming broad suspensions, Beijing describing something far more conditional. That gap has never been closed, and US import licenses for Chinese rare earths continue to be processed case by case. Getting clearer, attributable commitments from Xi himself would give allied negotiators real leverage — but Beijing will not offer that clarity without seeking something in return.

For Taiwan, the summit's risk is less about what gets agreed than about what gets said. Both theAtlantic Council and theStimson Center flag Beijing's push to harden Washington's standard formulation on Taiwan independence — from “does not support” to the stronger “opposes.” TheBBC reports that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Secretary of State Rubio last week that Taiwan remains the biggest risk point in the bilateral relationship, and that he hoped the US would make “the right choices.”

From the mainland side, Wu Yongping, dean of the Institute for Taiwan Studies at Tsinghua University, told theSouth China Morning Post that Beijing is on stronger footing over Taiwan now than during Trump's first term. The reason, Wu argued, is straightforward: Trump needs China's cooperation across too many fronts — trade stabilization, the Iran conflict, electoral deliverables — for Taiwan to remain as central to his China calculus as it once was. Wu said that if Trump were to explicitly state opposition to Taiwan independence, it would have a significant impact on cross-strait dynamics — though he stopped short of predicting such an outcome.

Not everyone shares that read. Asia Society senior fellow John Delury told theBBC that even if Trump says something that appears to be a concession on Taiwan, Chinese officials know better than to put much stock in it — any statement can be reversed with a social media post a week later. Stimson Center analystMichael Cunningham goes further, arguing that Trump is better prepared on this issue than critics assume. His advisors understand the stakes, allied governments — particularly Japan — have been reinforcing concerns directly, and the risks have been extensively aired in policy circles. The more likely outcome, Cunningham concludes, is that both leaders reaffirm their existing positions — which, for Taiwan, would itself be a stabilizing result.

What is not in doubt is that Taiwan is navigating real uncertainty. TheBBC notes Trump has already imposed a 15% tariff on Taiwan and has publicly questioned the island's value to the US security relationship. Taiwan's legislature last week approved a substantial extra defense spending package — though at roughly two-thirds of what the government originally sought, according to theSouth China Morning Post. A $14 billion US arms package remains unsigned, reportedly held back to avoid antagonizing Beijing ahead of the summit.

One issue that cuts across the summit without being formally on the agenda is Iran. China has positioned itself alongside Pakistan as a mediator in the now three-month-old US-Israel conflict, presenting a five-point ceasefire plan and quietly nudging Tehran toward negotiations, theBBC reports. Beijing wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened — the ongoing war has pushed up oil and input costs for Chinese exporters, with some producers seeing cost increases of 20%.

Yet theAtlantic Council cautions that China's mediation posture should not be mistaken for genuine alignment with US goals. Beijing continues to support the Iranian government behind the scenes, and its public pressure on Tehran has been carefully framed as coming from the international community rather than as a favour to Washington. Rubio himself told reporters he hoped China would tell Iran “what it needs to be told” — a statement that suggests Washington is asking for more than it is likely to receive.

On a more tractable front, the summit could produce concrete movement on detained Americans. Among those still held is Ekpar Asat, a Uyghur man detained in China after participating in a US government exchange program a decade ago, whose case theAtlantic Council highlights as a bipartisan priority in Congress. Beijing would gain meaningful diplomatic goodwill at relatively low cost by releasing him and others in similar situations.

A joint counternarcotics operation in April offered a reminder, noted inBeijing's official commentary, that practical cooperation remains possible even in a relationship defined by rivalry — and that such cooperation may prove more durable than summit declarations.

Beyond the policy checklist, Stimson Center researchersEvan Cooper and Minseon Ku argue the summit carries significance for what it visually represents: a recognition, however implicit, that the unipolar moment has passed and that China now occupies a permanent place alongside the United States at the apex of global affairs. Brookings Institution director Ryan Hass put it more pragmatically to theBBC: so long as the visit proceeds smoothly and Trump concludes he was treated respectfully, the uneasy calm in the bilateral relationship will endure. If Trump leaves feeling disrespected, he could have a change of heart.

That framing captures the summit's essential dynamic. The policy outcomes matter, but so does the theatre — and in Beijing this week, the two are harder to separate than usual.

（Related： Matt Pottinger: Why Taiwan Should Look to Ukraine, Not the US, for Defense Lessons ｜ Latest ）