The leaders of the world’s two superpowers are meeting in the US this week. It is Xi Jinping’s first state visit to the US in more than a decade. The last time the Chinese president was hosted in Washington (by Barack Obama in 2015), the issues on the agenda included cybercrime, technology, the climate crisis and human rights.
The star of the day was Ne-Yo, who serenaded Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, with Peng reportedly singing along at the state dinner. This time, Xi is meeting Donald Trump, who has overhauled the world order and recalibrated the US-China relationship. Trump is contending with a China that is in a much stronger position than it was 10 years ago.
Here are five things to look out for at this week’s US-China summit. Although AI was surprisingly absent from talks the last time Xi and Trump met, in Beijing in May, it is expected to be high on the agenda this week. There are calls for the two leaders to agree some sort of AI safety framework to prevent the technology – about which there have been dire warnings in recent weeks – from spinning out of human control.
But Trump has called warnings about safety a “hoax”, and although Xi has called for “safety and security in AI development”, China sees AI as the key to unlocking its own national potential and bristles at US efforts to contain its progress. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, recently suggested that the two countries establish a mechanism to communicate on major AI safety issues. Xi and Trump may discuss further details.
But Amanda Hsiao, the China director at the Eurasia Group, says: “The question that’s going to raise is just how is it going to be operationalised, and will it be effective. Because the US and China have had a long history of having crisis hotlines, and they haven’t always been effective.” The biggest thorn in the US-China relationship is trade. When Trump launched a global trade war last year, with the biggest target being China, it risked bringing the world economy to its knees.
China reciprocated with tariffs on US goods approaching 150% and unveiled a host of other retaliatory measures, most notably restricting the export of rare earths that are vital for US manufacturing. Since then, a temporary truce in the trade war, and Trump’s war in Iran, have stabilised the US-China trading relationship, with the source of global economic pain coming from the Middle East rather than China. But the truce is set to expire in November.
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