The big questions hanging over the Trump-Xi meeting in China | China
On February 20, a White House official confirmed that US President Donald Trump will travel to Beijing next month to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Top of the agenda: US-China trade war.
A week later, Trump started a new war in the Middle East by approving joint strikes with Israel against Iran. The consequences spread far beyond the region and caused alarm in Beijing. The Presidential summit has been postponed.
Now the highly anticipated meeting between Trump and Xi is expected to take place in Beijing on May 13-15, and China’s agenda has changed.
Beijing wants to ensure that the high tariffs Trump announced last year – which rose as high as 145 percent before the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in October – do not return.
But the more pressing concern now is finding a way to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which half of China’s crude oil passes. Although China is more insulated from an energy shock than other Asian countries, thanks to its diversified energy mix and large stocks, the risk of global recession, which the International Monetary Fund has warned is a possible outcome of the Iran war, poses a greater threat to China’s economy. About one-fifth of China’s GDP comes from exports. If the rest of the world can no longer spend money on goods, China will suffer.
“There is no country whose national interests are at the forefront of continuing this conflict,” Ali Wyne, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, said at a briefing last week. “While China is much better prepared than many of the United States’ allies and partners in Asia to weather a short-term disruption to commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz… a long-term disruption becomes more problematic.”
So the big question ahead of the Trump-Xi summit is: What will China do to help resolve the conflict?
Last month, it was reported that China pushed Iran to the negotiating table with the United States in the previous round of ceasefire talks. Last week, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing. According to a statement from China, Wang called for a “comprehensive cessation of hostilities” in the Middle East and said China “supports Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty and security.”
The United States is making it increasingly clear that it wants China’s help in reaching a deal with Iran. U.S. treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the administration wants Beijing to “increase” pressure on Iran to reopen the waterway.
This in itself could affect the dynamic of the meeting between the two dictatorial leaders.
“Trump is in a situation where he is asking the Chinese president for help,” said Dali Yang, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. This “puts him in a situation he’s not used to.”
Influence over Iran could be a useful trump card for Beijing regarding trade and Taiwan, the other two main issues on the summit’s agenda.
Despite the trade war, China’s trade surplus reached a record $1.2 trillion last year, with the largest buyer being the United States.
Yang said the trade war involved tit-for-tat policies, from sky-high tariffs to restricting Beijing’s rare earth exports, and the two sides were almost “sumo wrestling”. “Both sides drew”
Yang, Like many analysts, he doesn’t expect a major breakthrough in a trade deal. Instead, it could be a broadly worded statement that “will allow both parties to claim this was a productive meeting.” The most likely outcome would be an extension of the ceasefire reached in South Korea in October.
Such an outcome would be an uneasy compromise for Beijing, Da Wei, a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University, said in a recent interview with the German Marshall Fund. “We want stability and predictability. Of course, the tariff level is important, but predictability is more important,” he said. “We don’t want to just review it or delay it for another year or a few months. That creates uncertainty in the business environment.”
However, Da added that the biggest issue at the summit was the issue of arms sales to Taiwan. Last year, the US Congress approved an $11 billion arms sales package to Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory. This was reportedly stopped by the foreign ministry ahead of the Trump-Xi summit, but Beijing wants it to be canceled entirely.
On Friday, after months of debate, Taiwan’s legislature approved a $25 billion special defense budget. The budget is about two-thirds of what the government originally wanted; This means that the US will be able to cover its purchases but not domestic arms production. A foreign ministry spokesman said further delays in funding domestic talent would be “a concession to the Chinese Communist Party”.
Beijing understands that some issues, such as arms sales, are subject to congressional oversight rather than directly controlled by the president. But it could cause Trump to make greater concessions on rhetoric. Even a subtle shift like saying the United States “opposes” Taiwan independence instead of the current “does not support” would be a win for Beijing, which is trying to reshape its international outlook according to the world view that Taiwan (a territory that has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party) is part of China.
Wang said Taiwan is “the biggest risk in China-US relations” in a recent phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. China’s foreign minister called on the United States to “open new space for China-US cooperation” on Taiwan.
And Beijing sees Trump’s presidency as softer than previous administrations, including Trump’s first term in the White House.
Trump loosened restrictions on the sale of advanced semiconductors to China, showed little support for Taiwan, reportedly ordered the Pentagon to cut references to China being a threat to the US defense strategy and said he expected a “big, strong hug” from Xi in Beijing.
Yang said China “very much appreciates the respect President Trump has shown to President Xi.”
Additional research by Yu-chen Li
