President Trump rolled out the red carpet for Xi Jinping this week for the first state visit that the Chinese leader has made since 2015. The visit comes at an important time for both men. For Trump, the state visit comes about six weeks before the midterm elections.
Xi has an important calendar ahead as well, with a key Communist Party meeting scheduled for next month that should set up a widely expected announcement next fall that Xi will rule for another five-year term. But there were a few commitments that came out of the meetings in Washington this week and more emphasis put on pageantry. The U.S. says the two countries will extend by two months a trade truce that lets the U.S. access rare earth elements from China, and for China to access some advanced American semiconductor chips.
But the two delegations did not announce crucial details about two still-unformed boards of trade and investment, Boeing purchases and pending Chinese agricultural purchases. Instead, the two men relied on cordial remarks that glossed over the significant trade and economic complaints that have driven recent tension in the U.S.-China relationship. At a state dinner of about 145 guests, Xi toasted to Trump's health and a "new chapter" in bilateral relations, while Trump highlighted the long history of commerce between both countries.
Xi "wielded many of the usual feel-good tropes of Chinese diplomacy," said Lucy Hornby, author of The Last Man, an upcoming biography on Xi, such as panda diplomacy. In his opening remarks, Trump referenced the intertwined histories of the U.S. Marines and Chinese Communist fighters during World War II, a conflict during which "Look at the greatness that we had together fighting in World War II," he said.
"Neither side is really in a position from a domestic standpoint to work out the really complicated issues at the heart of the conflict between the two," Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the think tank New America, said. Trump played up his personal relationship with Xi. Xi focused on geopolitics.
The two men and their delegations spent about three hours together in meetings inside the White House on Thursday, but much of the time was spent on a personal tour Trump gave to Xi of the South Lawn, lingering on the new helipad Trump has had constructed there and climbing inside the new Marine One helicopter. Beijing views the U.S. relationship through sweeping, historical terms, with Xi invoking the "Thucydides trap" in his opening remarks on Thursday — a concept plucked from academia but is increasingly referenced by senior Chinese policymakers to describe possible conflict when a rising power threatens a declining power. Yet China indicated it considered the visit had gone smoothly.
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