Kinaforum

lørdag 16. mai 2026

What was actually achieved at Trump and Xi’s ‘stalemate summit’ in Beijing?

Donald Trump’s whirlwind trip to Beijing – the first US presidential visit in nearly a decade – wrapped up with much fanfare but little clarity about what was actually achieved. Trump said on Friday he and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, “settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. But he didn’t provide much detail on what those solutions were.

“My guess is that despite all the ceremony and summit theatrics, that at the end of the day, this summit will not be that significant,” said Amanda Hsiao, the China director at the Eurasia Group, an advisory and consultancy business. “The core of the relationship hasn’t changed.”

In the hours after he departed Beijing, Trump provided more detail in an interview with Fox News about what he had discussed with China’s leader. Here is where things stand on the summit’s core issues.

Takeaways from Trump’s trip to China: Taiwan, a new framework for relationship and flattery for Xi

For three days in China, President Donald Trump was unusually quiet, not speaking to reporters much and even mostly staying off social media. Then he got on his plane home and unloaded. Trump’s trip was unexpectedly dominated by discussions about Taiwan and the notion that Washington and Beijing could adopt a new framework for managing their complicated relationship.

Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off the whirlwind visit with a warning: If Washington mishandles its relations with the self-governing island of Taiwan, the U.S. and China could end up clashing or even in open conflict.

Trump did not respond publicly, refraining from mentioning Taiwan while in Beijing. But he suggested aboard Air Force One on his way home that Xi’s staunch opposition might make him rethink a planned U.S. arms sale to Taipei.

Trump and top CEOs leave a more self-reliant China with few deals to show for it

Before leaving a two-day summit in Beijing, President Donald Trump said he had made many trade deals with China, accompanied by a cohort of “brilliant” tech billionaires.

But the details of those deals – at least on Friday afternoon in Beijing when Air Force One departed – were vague, signaling a potential shift in leverage between the world’s two largest economies since Trump’s last visit nearly nine years ago.

Investors, decrying the lack of specifics, sold off stocks. Dow futures were down more than 300 points, or 0.6%. The broader S&P 500 futures fell 1% and Nasdaq futures were 1.4% lower. With no firm resolution to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Brent oil futures rose 3%, above $108 a barrel. Soybean futures sold off sharply after the United States spoke of a nebulous commitment from China to buy agricultural products. And bond yields rose as traders grew cautious about rising inflation.

Trump’s soft touch on China, in stark relief

President Donald Trump has long tried to portray himself as something of a strongman on China, though his tough talk and trade wars are often undercut by his remarkably accommodating nature toward Xi Jinping. And that softer approach was on full display during Trump’s Beijing visit this week.

Trump’s trip — and his comments at the tail end of it — include some notable rhetorical and actual concessions to the Chinese government. He also explicitly walked back previous campaign promises to get tough on China.

Salesman Trump leaves China with very little in his bag

Few things enrage Donald Trump more than being upstaged, particularly when he is on the biggest stage of both his stints as US president — in Beijing. Though Trump World will deny that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang did just that this week, he did. And global markets know it.

Just as expected, the first visit by a US leader to the Chinese capital in eight years was huge on pomp and circumstance, light on diplomatic breakthroughs. President Xi Jinping threw Trump enough of a bone so that he can argue back in Washington that the US and China will cooperate to tamp down trade tensions and, most importantly, end the war in Iran. But the real action – and global fascination – was Trump’s US$20 trillion entourage of CEOs seeking greater access to Asia’s biggest economy. That delegation, representing a market value equivalent to China’s annual gross domestic product, stole the spotlight from the camera-hungry Trump.

Why Xi invited Trump to this highly secretive former imperial garden

US President Donald Trump spent his final morning in Beijing in Zhongnanhai — the highly secretive, tightly guarded leadership compound of China’s ruling Communist Party. Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping strolled through its pristine gardens, with Trump admiring the roses and Xi offering to send seeds before they held talks over tea and lunch.

The central seat of power in China, the venue is sometimes compared to the White House or the Kremlin. Only a handful of American leaders have ever stepped beyond the centuries-old red ochre walls that separate the compound from the rest of the capital.

Security is extremely tight, with access to the compound overseen by an elite military unit responsible for the personal safety of top party leaders. Images of the enclosure are tightly censored and obscured on digital mapping platforms.

Xi Warns Trump of ‘Thucydides’ Trap.’ What to Know About China’s Favorite Greek Reference for U.S. Relations

“The world has come to another crossroads,” Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, as the two leaders began their summit in Beijing. Then Xi asked: “Can China and the U.S. overcome the so-called ‘Thucydides Trap’ and create a new paradigm of major-country relations?”

Xi was referring to the ancient Athenian historian and military commander Thucydides, who wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, recounting the nearly three-decade conflict between the former Greek poleis (city-states) of Athens and Sparta. In his account, he wrote: “The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon [Sparta], made war inevitable.”

How A.I. Was the Elephant in the Room at the Trump-Xi Summit

President Donald Trump’s entourage of tech and business leaders should have placed artificial intelligence at the center of his highly-anticipated summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week. But the leaders appeared to focus more on limited questions of trade, without reaching any agreement on the future of A.I.

A lot seemed to be on the table for A.I. The talks, which concluded on Friday, took place against the backdrop of a global A.I. race that has been dominated by the two superpowers. Democratic lawmakers have raised the alarm on allowing Chinese firms to buy A.I. chips from the U.S., and the White House has in recent days accused China of mass A.I. theft. At the same time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who joined Trump on the trip at the last minute, was hoping to secure a deal to sell China Nvidia’s H200 chip, which has not been delivered to China despite U.S. approval for its sale.

Trump’s China Trip Underscores How Power Has Shifted East

He may have descended Air Force One late Wednesday to the cheers of schoolchildren brandishing the Stars and Stripes, and flanked by tech’s most influential tycoons, but it didn’t take long for U.S. President Donald Trump to be put in his place in Beijing.

In the first closed-door discussions of the visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a stinging rebuke regarding American arms sales to Taiwan, warning the superpowers could “collide or even enter into conflict” regarding the self-ruling island, over which China claims sovereignty. Taiwan, Xi said, “is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations.”

Trump offers platitudes while Xi warns of possible confrontation during China summit

Chinese leader Xi Jinping offered stark warnings about avoiding possible clashes between his nation and the U.S. on Thursday and even cautioned visiting President Donald Trump that Washington’s handling of its relations with Taiwan could lead to “conflicts” that might put “the entire relationship in great jeopardy.”

The stern tone was a sharp contrast to Trump, who opened the highly anticipated summit with Xi by praising his Chinese counterpart and declaring that “it’s an honor to be your friend.”

The contrast underscored just how far apart the leaders remain on thorny issues including the war in Iran, trade disputes and Washington’s relationship with Taiwan — and suggested that Trump and Xi’s highly anticipated meetings are likely to be longer on pageantry and symbolism than major breakthroughs.

Live updates: Xi and Trump wrap up bilateral meeting after 2 hours of talks

U.S. President Donald Trump is in Beijing for a crucial series of meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Few breakthroughs are expected on divisive issues such as the Iran war, trade, technology and Taiwan.
In a closed-door meeting, Xi warned Trump that differences over Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own territory, could bring U.S. and China to clashes or conflict, Chinese state media reported. Trump in December authorized an $11 billion arms package for Taiwan, but has not yet moved forward with delivery.

Trump hopes to focus talks on trade and deals for China to buy more agricultural products and passenger planes, setting up a board to address their differences and avoid a repeat of the trade war ignited last year after Trump’s tariff hikes. The visit occurs at a delicate moment for Trump’s presidency, as his popularity at home has been weighed down by the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran and rising inflation as a consequence of that conflict.

BRICS foreign minister meet in India as Iran war, oil prices and divisions test the bloc's unity

Foreign ministers from the BRICS nations began a two-day meeting in New Delhi on Thursday as the expanding bloc faces divisions over the war in Iran, rising energy prices and growing global economic uncertainty.

The meeting brings together diplomats from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa along with newer member countries. It comes as the war in Iran has disrupted global energy supplies and driven up oil prices and coincides with U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Russia’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov are attending. China is represented by Ambassador Xu Feihong while Foreign Minister Wang Yi remains in the Chinese capital during Trump’s visit.

The Coming Food Crisis in South Asia

Disrupted oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz may appear, at first glance, to be another episode of energy market instability. But the implications, especially for South Asia, run much deeper. Disruptions in oil supply are not only causing a surge in fuel prices; they are a clear warning of an impending food crisis driven by fertilizer shortages, rising production costs, and increasingly fragile agri-food systems. A similar pattern was evident during the 2007-2008 global crisis, when fertilizer prices nearly tripled, and global food prices surged by more than 50 percent.

Modern agri-food systems depend heavily on energy, not only for transport and irrigation but also for fertilizer production. Nitrogen fertilizers, in particular, rely on natural gas. When energy supplies tighten, production slows and prices increase. What begins as an energy shock can quickly move into the agricultural system.

Jury convicts man accused of running secret Chinese spy outpost in New York City

A man accused of running a secret Chinese spy outpost from a nondescript office building in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood was convicted Wednesday of acting as an illegal foreign agent.

Lu Jianwang, 64, was also convicted of obstructing justice by deleting text messages that U.S. prosecutors said included orders from Beijing to silence, harass and intimidate pro-democracy dissidents. He was acquitted on a related conspiracy charge.

The weeklong trial in Brooklyn federal court pitted U.S. concerns about China’s crackdown on dissidents against the defense’s contention that prosecutors twisted a well-meaning Chinese American community leader’s bureaucratic misstep to put him in prison.

Trump-Xi summit: a new arms control era can begin in Beijing

US President Donald Trump is meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, with the arms control architecture, global and bilateral alike, in collapse. The Eleventh Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, now underway in New York, is sliding toward a third successive failure to produce a consensus document.

New START expired on February 5, leaving the US and Russia without binding limits on their strategic arsenals for the first time since the 1970s. The global arms control system is on life support at a time of unprecedented global nuclear risks.

Every permanent member of the Security Council (P5) is now expanding their nuclear capabilities. Artificial intelligence is entering the targeting, surveillance, and decision-support systems that surround nuclear forces, compressing the time leaders have to think before they act.

Why Trump will ‘limp’ into China and likely leave empty-handed

Since 2013, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been looking for a strategy to make Asia’s biggest economy great again. Little did he know it would be Donald Trump’s presidency. Fifteen months ago, as Trump 2.0 got underway, the White House radiated confidence. Trump advisers argued that sweeping tariffs would pressure Beijing to yield, redirecting the gains of a US$53 trillion economic relationship sharply in Washington’s favor.

Trump’s arrival in Beijing this week comes at a moment when, to use his own phrasing, Xi’s China “holds all the cards.”

China’s state-run Global Times goes even further, arguing that the United States is limping into the visit like a “giant with a limp” as the Iran conflict spirals, oil prices surge past US$100 a barrel, tariffs strain relations with US allies, and court rulings chip away at Washington’s leverage abroad.

US-China head-to-head: Explained in 11 maps and charts

US President Donald Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 14 and 15, following weeks of delays due to the US-Israel war on Iran.

The talks are expected to focus on trade relations and mark the first time a US president has visited China in nearly a decade. In recent decades, the US and China have emerged as the world’s dominant superpowers, frequently seen as locked in a contest for who sits atop the world order. A quarter of a century ago, by contrast, the US dwarfed China in most major indicators, but today, Beijing is regarded as the factory of the world and is outpacing its Western counterpart in many regards.

In this head-to-head, we measure the two countries in terms of economics, military, resources and technology.

Trump and Xi to meet in Beijing: The key issues shaping the China summit

United States President Donald Trump has departed for Beijing ahead of a high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, after weeks of unsuccessful US efforts to persuade China to help bring Iran back to negotiations and ease tensions around the Strait of Hormuz.

The leaders of the world’s two largest economies are due to meet on Thursday and Friday during Trump’s first visit to China since 2017, with talks expected to focus on trade, Taiwan, artificial intelligence and the war involving Iran. Here is what we know about the upcoming summit and the key issues expected to dominate the agenda.