Trump leaves China without breakthroughs on Iran, Taiwan or AI | China
Donald Trump left China on Friday after a much-hyped summit between the world’s two major powers that was full of flourishes and promises of stability but offered little in the way of concrete progress.
The US president had engaged in two days of talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, weakened by the protracted war in Iran, and had done little to change the perception that he and his people had been diminished on the global stage.
Instead, it was Xi who delivered the sharpest rhetoric of the meeting; On the future status of the self-governing island of Taiwan, Trump has conspicuously failed to back down.
In his final speech in Beijing on Friday, Trump claimed that the U.S. and China had “great trade deals” and that he and Xi had solved “a lot of different problems,” although details were scarce.
But critics are likely to argue that the carefully choreographed summit — attended by tech executives such as Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook, as well as Trump’s son Eric — was more performative than substantive, with no major breakthrough in Iran, Taiwan or the countries’ AI arms race.
Instead, as he was leaving, Trump posted on the Truth Social network: “China has a Ballroom, so should the USA!” — a reference to his long-running campaign to build a $400 million ballroom at the White House.
But when he returns to Washington, he will find that the war in Iran is still a major political headache. There has been much speculation about how much pressure the United States is putting on China, the largest buyer of Iranian oil, to use its influence with Iran to encourage the country to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. There is also a question mark over whether Beijing will be willing to bow to this pressure.
Speaking alongside Xi at the Zhongnanhai garden in Beijing on Friday, Trump said: “We discussed Iran. [how] We want it to end. We don’t want them to have nuclear weapons. “We want the Straits to be opened,” he said.
He added: “We want them [Iran] I want to put an end to this because it’s crazy, kind of crazy. And that’s not good, that can’t happen.”
The White House statement regarding the talks between Trump and Xi, which lasted more than two hours on Thursday, stated that the leaders “agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy” and that “President Xi also made clear that China opposes the militarization of the strait.”
Later Friday, Trump said he was considering lifting sanctions on Chinese companies that buy Iranian oil. He told Fox News that Xi assured him China will not supply Iran with military equipment, adding: “But at the same time he said they bought a lot of their oil there, and they’d like to keep doing that. He’d like to see Hormuz strait opened … I said, well, we didn’t stop it. They did it.”
China’s foreign ministry on Friday again called for a ceasefire in Iran and said the Strait of Hormuz should be opened “as soon as possible”.
About half of China’s crude oil passes through the waterway, but the bigger threat to China’s economy would be if conflict in the Middle East sparked a global recession that would reduce demand for exports.
However, many in Beijing believe that the crisis in Iran is not China’s responsibility.
Zhou Bo, a retired senior colonel and senior researcher at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy, said: “On Iran, China definitely wants to help, but reading what Rubio said: He actually seems to be shifting the burden to the Chinese side. We have a saying in China: ‘Why should I clean up your mess?’ Something like that.”
Meanwhile, Beijing has made clear that Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as part of its territory, is a top priority at this week’s meeting. Xi warned Trump that their countries could experience “conflicts and even conflicts” if Taiwan is not handled properly, saying it was the most important issue in US-China relations.
Trump on Friday insisted that “nothing has changed” in U.S. policy toward Taiwan, while acknowledging that he might not approve a major arms sale to the autonomous island. Speaking to Fox News during his flight back to the US, the president said he had not made any commitments regarding the island, adding: “I don’t think there is a conflict in Taiwan.”
Xi sees unifying Taiwan with China as a core part of his legacy, and he does not rule out the use of force to achieve that goal. At the top of Beijing’s wish list for Taiwan is for the United States to stop supplying defensive weapons to the island.
Trump said on Air Force One that he had not decided whether to move forward with a major arms package for Taiwan planned for this year.
Last year, the United States sparked outrage in Beijing by approving a record $11 billion arms package to Taiwan. There are plans to enact another package worth $14 billion this year, but the White House has reportedly stopped these plans ahead of Trump’s visit to Beijing.
Trump was making the first U.S. presidential visit to China in almost a decade and enjoyed hospitality that included an impeccable arrival ceremony, a tour of the Temple of Heaven, and a lavish state banquet in the Great Hall of the People; here Xi told Trump that China’s “great rejuvenation” could “go hand in hand” with “making America great again.”
Gathering for a working tea and lunch in the Zhongnanhai garden on Friday, Trump admired the roses and said Xi had promised him to send seeds for the White House rose garden.
“This was an incredible visit,” he said as the men sat together in an opulent room paneled with wood and covered with a huge gold carpet. “I think a lot of good things have come out of this. We’ve had great trade deals; great for both countries… I believe we’ve done some really great things.”
Trump added: “We’ve solved a lot of different problems that other people couldn’t solve.”
He claimed that China had agreed to buy US oil, soybeans and 200 Boeing jets and had committed to purchasing up to 750 aircraft, but Chinese officials did not confirm this. However, it seems that no concrete agreement has been reached on many important issues.
Human rights were barely mentioned on the trip, although Trump told Fox News upon his return from Beijing that Xi had said he was “seriously considering” releasing priests imprisoned in China. These people likely include pastor Ezra Jin, who was arrested last year during a sweeping crackdown on Christians. However, Trump said the situation of democracy activist Jimmy Lai, imprisoned in Hong Kong, was “challenging.”
Julian Gewirtz, the former director for China at the national security council during the Biden administration, said China’s new formulation of U.S.-China relations is about “locking in this current phase of strategic stalemate for the remainder of Trump’s term and ideally beyond.”
“Xi Jinping has been working for years to be ready for this moment, to bring an American president who is widely accepted around the world as a precedent to Beijing, and now it’s happening,” Gerwirtz said.
Wu Xinbo, a professor of international studies at Fudan University and an advisor to the Chinese government, said the balance of power between the United States and China is “shifting toward greater equality.”
“In the past, it seemed that the United States had the upper hand by constantly putting pressure and attacking China. But now, it is fair to say that the two countries have reached a new balance point,” Wu said.
At a busy intersection near Trump’s hotel, the crowd gathering to see the presidential motorcade was smaller Friday morning than Thursday evening, and a heavy police presence encouraged people not to loiter. Many people complained about the inconvenience caused by repeated road closures.
When asked about their views on Trump, the word Beijingers repeatedly said was “unpredictable.”
“The meaning of what he said is not quite the same,” said a Trump watcher who declined to give his name.
Additional research by Yu-chen Li
