Trump-Xi summit: Grand optics, unresolved rivalry

The pomp and pageantry that greeted President Xi Jinping on his arrival in the US on 23 September was significant. The last time an American president was present at Joint Base Andrews to welcome a foreign head of government or state, aside from papal visits, was when President John F. Kennedy received British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1962. This piece of historical detail — along with the red carpet treatment that feted Xi throughout his visit — was not lost among Chinese netizens who saw it as recognition on the part of President Trump that he was meeting his peer. 

Doubtless, the symbolism played well among their respective domestic constituencies as the leaders of both great powers projected their standing as global statesmen. This impact cannot be over-emphasised given how both leaders face crucial meetings after the summit: the Chinese Communist Party will meet for its fifth plenum in October, to set the stage for Xi’s fourth term in office, while the Republican Party of Trump is preparing for what will likely be a hotly contested mid-term election in November.

Beyond the favourable optics, what did the summit achieve?

Meeting in itself a box ticked

The Trump-Xi summit took place at a time when mutual trust between the US and China is arguably at its lowest point in recent history. Regardless of the chemistry between the two leaders, their countries remain locked in a season of deepening rivalry and competition that will not pass anytime soon. This is the structural reality that framed the September summit. It is also for this reason that expectations were modest. The very fact that the meeting took place without incident was itself something of a “deliverable” to be celebrated

An immediate concern for bilateral relations between the two largest economies in the world was the prospect of extending a trade truce that both parties hammered out in their meeting on 30 October 2025 in Busan. While the resultant two-month extension that both parties eventually arrived at has been touted in some quarters as a significant accomplishment, it veiled the reality that Washington had rejected Beijing’s request for the truce to be extended until the end of Trump’s term in office. The US rejection was on the grounds that China had failed to keep its side of the original deal, purportedly fulfilling only two-thirds of its rare earth supply commitments. For its part, the absence of business leaders from the Chinese delegation — a striking departure from the composition of the US delegation that visited Beijing with Trump earlier this year in May — was a visible demonstration that China lacked confidence that there was any serious prospect of a major economic breakthrough.

AI to be an ongoing issue

Against the backdrop of repeated calls by American hyperscalers for the development of frontier AI technology to slow down, AI regulation surfaced as another pressing preoccupation for the two presidents. Discussions concluded with an agreement to continue dialogue and increase cooperation, including the setting up of a “communication channel” for artificial intelligence incidents. Yet a yawning gap remained between the fundamental views and approach to AI governance on the part of the two parties. An enthusiastic and unapologetic supporter of AI, Trump’s signature contribution to the discussion was his attempt to rebrand it as “super intelligence”. While Xi reportedly offered measured support, he in essence eschewed semantical acrobatics, choosing instead to focus attention on prioritising “human control” of AI development. 

The Gordian knot of Taiwan

To the extent that there were “small wins” at the summit, these were in no small part facilitated by the crucial preparatory meeting between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng in New York, which laid the groundwork for subsequent summit discussions on trade and AI (as well as other matters pertaining to Chinese purchases of agricultural products, for which the US failed to secure Chinese commitment). On one particular issue, however, both parties struggled to find convergence, if not agreement: Taiwan.

Prior to the summit, America’s regional allies in the Indo-Pacific had already begun sensing ambivalence on the part of the Trump administration towards US commitments to Taiwan. At issue is the openly transactional approach that the White House has adopted towards the island, which China sees as a renegade province. Since returning to the Oval Office, Trump has repeated his unsubstantiated claim on several occasions that Taiwan had stolen the semiconductor chip industry from the US. 

US Department of Defense officials persist in their demands that the island increase its defence budget as part of burden-sharing. The president meanwhile continues to defer a US$14 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, which he has openly described, much to the dismay of the current leadership of Taiwan, as a “very good negotiating chip with China”.

Seeking to seize an opportunity presented by what he perceives to be the Trump administration’s wavering support for Taiwan, Xi urged the US to depart from its traditional declaratory position of not supporting Taiwan independence towards the “correct position” of opposing Taiwan independence. This is a semantic shift with strategic significance, for it implies an accompanying expectation that Washington make an active effort to outrightly oppose and contain what Beijing sees as pro-independence forces. Neither the White House nor Trump himself has publicly responded to Xi’s comments.

While interest in the summit outcomes was understandably great and the panda diplomacy was a nice disarming gesture, few were under any illusion that the meeting would achieve anything substantive. Given the deep degree of distrust between the two powers locked in structural competition, this should hardly be a surprise.

It was in that respect that the optics and symbolism were themselves paramount, for they suggest that both parties at least remained committed to continue inching towards a “constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability”, and generating momentum that would hopefully carry over to later bilateral meetings scheduled for Shenzhen for the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in November and Miami for the G20 Leaders’ Summit in December.

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