There were three central aims for last week’s meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in Beijing: meaningful progress on Iran and opening the Strait of Hormuz; to maintain the status quo on Taiwan; and to ensure China would not use its near-monopoly on rare-earth processing as leverage against other countries or for unrelated aims. The summit, however, delivered none of these.
Chinese statements gave Taiwan prominent attention and barely mentioned Iran. The US account discussed Iran but did not mention Taiwan. While the White House claimed that Beijing agreed Iran should never have a nuclear weapon, the Chinese account said only, “This conflict, which should never have happened, has no reason to continue,” before urging all sides to engage in negotiation towards an outcome that “accommodates the concerns of all parties.”
A casual reader could be forgiven for wondering whether they attended the same meeting.
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As China has grown stronger, its diplomacy has come to resemble a modern version of the tribute system: the way successive Chinese empires managed so-called barbarian states for nearly 2,000 years. As the richest and most powerful empire, China historically used its economic strength and market access to shape the behaviour of smaller neighbours.
The emperor would welcome lesser powers with elaborate displays of hospitality that reinforced the emperor’s pre-eminence and reminded visitors of the cost of disobedience. Visitors would present gifts – native produce, perhaps a second-rate horse – which the emperor would graciously accept. In return for acknowledging China’s superior status, they received peace, protection, and trade privileges.
Last week’s meeting echoed that tribute system in striking ways. Xi, cast as the emperor, appeared calm and in control. Trump, despite arriving with a large delegation of business leaders, seemed diminished: seeking help with a war he could not manage, erratic, and overly eager to flatter his host. Xi stressed the importance of peace while warning that US missteps could easily lead to conflict.
As a rhetorical power move, Xi Jinping’s reference to the Thucydides trap – the risk of war between a rising power and a declining one – was unusually direct. The summit was overshadowed by the theory’s central idea: that when a once-dominant state is in decline, conflict is more likely than not.
Trump may struggle to pronounce Thucydides and is unlikely to have read either History of the Peloponnesian War or Graham Allison’s Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, the book that popularised the theory and has been widely discussed in Beijing since its publication in 2017. But Xi Jinping’s message – and the confidence with which he delivered it – was unmistakable.
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Xi has many reasons to be grateful to his visitor: Trump’s behaviour makes China look like a responsible and sober global actor in contrast. His war on Iran has given China valuable insight into US military capabilities and limitations, while depleting American stockpiles so severely that Trump has had to redeploy assets from the Asia-Pacific to the Gulf. To replenish those stocks, Trump will need Chinese-refined rare earths and magnets, which China’s export licensing regime currently bans from military use.
Beijing regards the Trump presidency as erratic and unpredictable, so is reluctant to make major concessions in case Trump reverses any agreement the following week. Xi calibrated China’s offer carefully, making small concessions while refusing to budge on key issues. He did not, for example, accede to Trump’s request to free the imprisoned Hong Kong former newspaper owner Jimmy Lai.
On money – one of Trump’s favourite subjects – he did no better. Though Trump’s plane was packed with top business figures, the commercial results of the visit were thin. Before the summit, the US side had floated two ambitions: a renewed Chinese pledge to buy agricultural products from Midwestern farmers whose exports to China have fallen by 50% as a result of Trump’s ill-conceived tariff wars, and a possible Chinese order for 500 Boeing aircraft.
Trump told Fox News that China had agreed to buy 200 aircraft, less than half the 500 the markets had expected and fewer than the 300 Airbus jets China is already buying from Europe. Boeing’s share price promptly fell. Neither China nor Boeing has confirmed the deal.
As for the promise to buy US soybeans, it is far from clear that this will prove more successful than the similar pledge China made during Trump’s first term. China never spent the promised $200bn on US agricultural products it had pledged in that deal.
Nor was there movement in the dispute over sales of advanced Nvidia AI chips to China, despite CEO Jensen Huang’s dramatic last-minute addition to the delegation, hopping aboard during a refuelling stop in Alaska. The US has issued export licences for 750,000 advanced Nvidia chips, but China has not approved the purchase, despite the fact that these chips would give China’s AI ambitions a serious boost.
But because the US has intermittently restricted chip exports, Xi would now prefer not to buy, hoping shortages will spur domestic innovation and free China from any technological reliance on the US.
In its post-summit statement the White House claimed that the two sides discussed “expanding market access for American businesses in China and increasing Chinese investment in our industries.” The Chinese statements mention no specific business or trade agreements.
Both sides said they discussed Iran, but they differ on what was agreed: the Chinese statement limited itself to noting the strain on the global economy, “which hurts the common interests of the international community.”
A key element for China is Taiwan. The US is committed by law to providing Taiwan with the means to defend itself while maintaining “strategic ambiguity” on the question of whether the US would come to Taiwan’s defence in the event of an attack by China.
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Taiwan’s current government, the DPP, has a long-term ambition to secure recognition of Taiwan’s formal independence, but is unlikely to be rash enough to declare it, a move that would certainly trigger an armed response from Beijing.
There was a hint of menace in the Chinese statement: “President Xi stressed that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations. If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.”
In an interview with Fox News after the summit, Trump said he had not “reached a determination” on the $11bn arms package for Taiwan that was announced in late 2025 and approved by Congress. Xi has made clear that progress on the issues Washington wants Beijing to address will depend on how Beijing judges the way the US handles Taiwan. With Xi now due to visit the US in September, Taiwan may have to wait for its weapons.
Despite Trump’s enthusiasm, he has returned home with little more than a packet of seeds and a hint from China that if he avoids displeasing Xi, they may grow into something more substantial.
Isabel Hilton is a journalist, broadcaster and author, and founder of China Dialogue, an independent newsroom focused on China and climate change
