President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping will meet this week in a show of cordiality between the world’s two most powerful leaders, as they hold their third summit in less than a year. Still, there are serious differences between the Chinese and American positions on issues both sides treat as crucial: China’s trade practices and claims to the self-governing island of Taiwan, U.S. military operations and alliances in East Asia, and competition in their respective development of artificial intelligence.
While U.S. and Chinese officials have endorsed a goal of “constructive strategic stability” — avoiding the mutual damage of outright confrontation — each side is determined to shape future developments on those issues while avoiding big concessions.
Experts say Beijing and Washington appear to have different motivations for their bilateral relationship, with China seeking to be a peer to the U.S., while American policymakers want to retain the global primacy the country has prioritized for decades. Ahead of the summit, global affairs analysts say Trump appears poorly positioned to compete.
The Iran war looms as a shadow over the discussions. Trump’s decision to initiate the offensive and his inability to manage its impact — such as disruptions to the global economy and a spiral of conflict now extending to the other side of the Persian Gulf — have eroded some of the advantages the U.S. has traditionally enjoyed in vying with China, experts argue. Those include a perception of overwhelming military and technological prowess, unique influence over the global economy and a network of strongly committed partners.
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“After the Iran war, we see significant gaps in U.S. military power,” Jennifer Kavanagh, an analyst at the Defense Priorities think tank, told reporters in a call last week. “And I don’t mean that the U.S. military is weak … but it’s fragile. It has limited munitions, has significant gaps in naval and maritime capabilities, and we see that U.S. bases are much more vulnerable than was expected.”
Iran has significantly degraded American military facilities across the Persian Gulf region, and it will take years to rebuild the stockpiles of weapons depleted during the war. The Trump administration has also redirected the sole U.S. aircraft carrier posted in the Pacific Ocean toward the Middle East to replace another carrier that had been under severe strain.
Some observers fear American officials are ignoring those realities and their implications as they approach crucial negotiations with China over pressing matters such as increasing tension with Japan, a U.S. ally.
In policy circles, “There is no sense of needing to acknowledge China’s rise and that we obviously cannot maintain global hegemony given the fact we can’t even control Yemen,” said a congressional staffer in the House of Representatives, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the mood among their colleagues. The staffer was referring to escalating attacks against Saudi Arabia, a key American partner, by the Iran-backed Yemeni militia, the Houthis.
Meanwhile, China remains wary of long-standing American military installations and commitments in the Pacific. To Kavanagh, that leaves the two negotiating in “a very unstable situation,” something she characterized as “the worst of all worlds.”
“You have a situation where the United States has not done enough to show China that it’s serious about recognizing Chinese security concerns, but has done enough — or has involuntarily done enough — to freak out allies,” Kavanagh said.
In the immediate term, few expect a flare-up between American and Chinese officials over military deployments or other matters. Trump has unilaterally de-escalated when tensions have risen, such as when China retaliated against the president’s massive tariffs last year by restricting American imports of vital rare earths. And amid the Iran war, Xi is loath to create more instability, while Trump has notably shielded China from the punishment he has promised for Iranian trading partners. A decision on the most contentious issues, like a major U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, could be put off for months.
Melanie Hart, a former State Department official now at the Atlantic Council think tank, predicted the summit will produce modest outcomes: promises of dialogue on AI, lip service that does not end the jockeying over rare earths and another potential truce in the trade war. Hart did note, however, that Xi could be significantly emboldened if Trump further distances himself from the weapons for Taiwan. Another dramatic development isn’t out of the question if, as the New York Times suggested last week, Xi promises to help Trump deepen his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.
But letting broader American and Chinese disagreements fester could pose a risk, as each side’s relative position in their rivalry continues to shift.
“Some of the defenders of the Trump approach say, ‘Well, he’s buying time, he’s lowering tensions to buy time.’ But of course the follow-up is: to buy time by doing what, to do what and for what end?” said Julian Gewirtz, a researcher at Columbia University and a White House official in the Biden administration. “Are you buying time so you can launch a war of choice in the Middle East? That is not a good use of buying time and, in fact, is profoundly counterproductive. Or do you buy time to make huge investments in our science and research enterprise and figure out a way to strengthen our alliances?”
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