Behind the chatter around a possible Trump-Xi summit, why it could be significant

On Sunday (March 23), Republican Senator Steve Daines was in Beijing to attend the China Development Forum and met with the Chinese Premier Li Qiang. He told WSJ, “This was the first step to an important next step, which will be a meeting between President Xi and President Trump.”

Chinese language commentators, both overseas and within China, are also adding to the speculations about a visit and/or summit.

What led to the speculations?

Trump likely set the rumours going when he reportedly told his advisers he would visit Beijing within the first hundred days of assuming office. In a first from a US president-elect, he then extended a “longshot” invitation to Xi to attend his inauguration on January 20.

The second time was when Trump remarked in mid-February, “We’ll have, ultimately, President Xi, we will have everybody coming (to the US).”

On the other hand, the Office of the President in China is not known to entertain questions on such topics. Beijing’s standard response is to say, “There is no information to share.” However, the foreign ministry spokesperson has neither publicly indicated Beijing’s reaction or thinking on the subject, nor denied or confirmed receiving invitations from the White House.

Longtime China-watchers reckon that the Chinese usually prefer to follow protocols and that the two countries will want to hold high-level talks to “determine the outline of the negotiations before the face-to-face talks between the Chinese and American leaders.”

Why ‘Who visits first’ may matter more to China, than Trump

For “dealmaker” Trump, or dongwang (King of Understanding), as the US president is popularly called on China’s internet, issuing repeated visit-related statements may be a routine matter.

In a recent article, an influential Chinese strategic affairs commentator based in North America said, “Trump doesn’t care who visits whom first. During his first term, in order to break the deadlock with North Korea, he [Trump] did not hesitate to visit Kim Jong-un first.”

In Beijing, however, the Communist Party-owned English media outlet China Daily discussed the pros and cons of Xi visiting Washington first in a rare analysis. If Xi visits Trump first, there may be hope for avoiding or at least postponing further imposition of tariffs or technological restrictions by the US on China.

At the same time, from a diplomatic perspective, the visit could be interpreted as a sign of weakness. After Trump’s blow-up with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Oval House last month, Chinese officials have become more cautious and do not want to risk a repeat vis-à-vis Xi Jinping.

What a US-China summit might entail

Notwithstanding the politics of “who visits first”, high-level officials on both sides have been frantically engaged in holding summit talks.

According to The New York Times, the next month will be critical for US-China relations as Trump may impose a third round of tariffs on Chinese goods. This, according to experts in Beijing, may be among the key factors why Xi will be keen on face-to-face negotiations.

Additionally, if both sides are considering holding a summit meeting soon, their officials must also be determined not to give away “diplomatic victory” to the opposite side easily. Some analysts in China are speculating that to put pressure on Washington, China might insist that Trump travel to Beijing or else Beijing would cancel the summit talks. These scholars further argue that China is prepared for the worst and has no hopes for Trump.

Trump’s likely demands include China completely resolving its role in the supply of fentanyl to the US, requiring its active role in Ukraine peace talks and accepting undocumented Chinese immigrants in the US. Washington-based Stimson Centre’s China Program director Yun Sun told NYT, “For now, Mr. Trump may be biding his time to build leverage in a future negotiation with China.”

Likewise, media commentaries in China point to three significant issues Xi may want to discuss with President Trump. These are cancellation of tariffs imposed on Chinese goods, lifting the blockade preventing China access to the US in areas of advanced technology, and the US to stop supporting “Taiwan independence”.

Anticipation around such a meeting, however, does not mean that one visit would be sufficient to resolve the multiple friction points in the bilateral relationship. The last time Xi and Trump travelled to Washington and Beijing was in April 2017 and November 2017, respectively. Nothing substantive was gained by the visits.

A DeepSeek translation of the ancient Chinese saying 话不投机半句多, 但酒逢知已千杯少 or Hua bu touji ban juduo, dan jiufeng zhiyi qianbeishao says, “There is no point in talking to someone you don’t agree on but a thousand cups of wine are not enough when you meet a friend.” With a trust deficit and an unpredictable US under Trump, it remains to be seen what outcomes a summit might bring for the ties.

Hemant Adlakha teaches Chinese at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He is also Vice Chairperson and an Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), Delhi.