Why stage a grand spectacle if nothing will change? A look at motives for Trump-Xi summit

PHILADELPHIA – It is surely an extraordinary year in US-China ties. Up to four face-to-face meetings are likely between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies.

A grand spectacle is almost guaranteed when President Donald Trump hosts his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for the latter’s first visit to the US capital in 11 years.

Trump plans to personally receive Xi when he lands on Sept 23 at Joint Base Andrews, just outside Washington, for the second presidential summit of 2026. 

The runway reception is a rare departure from diplomatic protocol; sitting US presidents almost always receive visiting heads of state at the White House rather than at the military airfield.

It is also a jumbo status upgrade. In Beijing, Air Force One carrying Trump was met not by Xi but by Vice-President Han Zheng, who ranks only eighth in the party hierarchy. 

The Trump-Xi summit at the White House on Sept 24 will be capped by a gala dinner with top tech and finance chiefs in attendance. 

The next day, the Trumps will host Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to tea before taking a trip to the National Archives to view US founding documents in a year when the US celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence. 

No previous Chinese president has visited the Archives, which displays original documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. 

Also stored there are numerous records testifying to the US-China relationship, including the declassified White House memos, itinerary logs and televised broadcast footage of then President Richard Nixon’s historic meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong in 1972. 

This symbolic finale of the three-day visit is another sign of Trump’s stepped-up hospitality, which seems to go beyond the strictly reciprocal courtesies shown during state visits.

When Trump visited Beijing in May, Xi took him on a tour of Zhongnanhai, the walled compound near the Forbidden City where top Communist Party leaders live. It was not particularly exclusive; former presidents Nixon, George W. Bush and Barack Obama had been there during their state visits. 

What is common between the May and September visits is that neither president gets to give a public talk. In previous state visits by Chinese leaders, Jiang Zemin spoke at Harvard in 1997, Hu Jintao spoke at Yale in 2006, and Xi himself addressed students at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Washington, in 2015. 

Nor had Trump addressed students when he visited Beijing in May in the manner of other US presidents. Ronald Reagan spoke at Fudan University in 1984, Bill Clinton at Peking University in 1998, Bush at Tsinghua in 2002, and Obama addressed students from eight universities at the Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology in 2009.

But in a recurring feature of US-China presidential summits, the Trump-Xi joint press appearance is unlikely to include a live question-and-answer session with reporters. Journalists will be on watch, however, for any spontaneous moments that reveal their personal chemistry. Or lack thereof.

Tensions could ratchet up a day before Xi’s arrival, when Trump addresses the United Nations General Assembly, where he is expected to talk about his next moves as the Iran war enters its seventh month.

His speech will be watched to see if he holds China to account over reports that it had provided Iran with high-resolution satellite imagery allegedly used to target a US base in Jordan in a July 15 attack that killed three US soldiers. 

But chances are low that he will let the issue disrupt the summit, say US analysts. Nor will Trump press in person his own allegations, aired in a prime-time speech on July 16, that Beijing had tampered with the 2020 US presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden.

China, which has denied both allegations, does not expect to cede an inch to the US on any front during the visit focused on managing the relationship rather than striking momentous deals. 

“This (visit) is designed for deep public consumption,” said Kurt Campbell, former US deputy secretary of state and now chairman of The Asia Group, a strategic advisory firm based in Washington. 

“You’re going to see a president focused on delivering a perspective of power and prestige… a big public display meant to wow the senses with 21-gun salutes,” he said.

Both sides want the summit for immediate political purposes. “Trump has the midterms, Xi has the fifth plenum,” said Campbell.

Trump wants some wins for his agricultural base and to project his dealmaker status before the Nov 3 midterm congressional elections, which could knock the Republican Party’s majority in both houses of Congress. 

For Xi, the trip is a chance to stand as an equal alongside Trump just before the fifth plenary session of the 20th central committee of the Communist Party of China in October, where the focus is on internal politics. The summit also makes for good optics before Xi gets a fourth term in the 21st party congress in 2027.

Yet, substantive deliverables are unlikely at the summit. One reason is the unwieldy Trump administration. “It is an exceedingly big tent,” said Campbell. “You have the people who are most suspicious about China working next door to the people who believe we can cut some good deals.”

On the Chinese side, there is a marked guardedness. “The strategists around President Xi are firm in their belief that the US is in decline and potentially dangerous,” said Campbell.

The US is also politically weaker since Xi’s last state visit in 2015, he added. “It is much more divided today than it was then, both in the minds and on the streets. I also think there’s an undeniable sense of China’s progress on the global stage, whether it’s in countries that are living through overcapacity or the tremendous capability of what China’s being able to offer in markets. China is not arriving; it has arrived – and I think that is in the American psyche.”

Ryan Hass, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, said that while Trump had offered notable conciliatory gestures, Beijing was not taking the bait. 

“Beijing is focused on strengthening its long-term position for competing with the US, not on securing breakthroughs with Trump,” he said. “As a result, Chinese leaders appear to be calculating the lowest cost they must pay to sustain an uneasy calm in the relationship.”

In Trump, Beijing has an almost perfect interlocutor, he added. “The Trump administration does not champion human rights, religious freedom or liberal democratic governance, nor does it pressure China to reform its governance or economic models.”

And Trump has shown no interest in organising America’s allies to contain or constrain China’s expansion of influence in Asia or globally, he added.  

Trump has also accepted Beijing’s new framing of the relationship as one of “constructive strategic stability”. The concept, introduced during the May 13 to 15 summit in Beijing, is a blueprint to reduce geopolitical uncertainty, de-escalate tensions and guide relations. Some analysts expect it to be fleshed out during Xi’s trip.

On Taiwan, which Beijing regards as its most sensitive issue, Trump has said Taipei needs to “cool down a bit” amid continued cross-strait tensions. 

The pending arms sales package worth US$14 billion (S$17.8 billion) is a key issue for both the US and Taiwan, as well as China, which claims the self-ruled island as its own.

“The most likely scenario is that the package is going to be broken up into smaller packages,” said Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.  

Beijing has dangled some carrots for the US to delay the arms sales, she said. It has held out the possibility of a trilateral meeting between Trump, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Nov 18 to 19 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Shenzhen. A potential meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has also been discussed. Trump views both as highly desirable. 

“What I have been hearing is if President Trump goes to the APEC meeting, it’s very likely Xi is going to come to the G-20 meeting, which then pushes the arms sales delivery to the end of this year, if not next year,” Lin said.

An extension of their one-year trade war truce, which is expiring in November, may also remain hanging.

“The Chinese have wanted an agreement to extend the ceasefire through the end of the Trump administration. The Trump administration just wants to extend it (by) a few months to maintain leverage on China,” said Scott Kennedy, an expert on China business and economics at CSIS.

In what might be a pair of mutual concessions, an announcement of new tariffs over US allegations of trading partners’ excess manufacturing capacity has reportedly been delayed until after the meeting. The White House, meanwhile, will be looking for additional purchase commitments from China on soya beans, passenger jets and energy products.  

The summit does not spell a pause in US-China rivalry but is a “validation of the depth and uncertainty” of their strategic competition, said Evan Medeiros, a top Asia aide at the Obama White House.

“This is basically two geopolitical strongmen circling each other on the playground, trying to determine what their next move may be,” said Medeiros, now a senior adviser at The Asia Group. “The detente will probably continue through the end of this year, but it would ultimately result in a snapback to a more competitive relationship.”