Kinaforum

onsdag 23. september 2026

A lot’s changed since Xi Jinping’s last US state visit. Mostly in China’s favor

When Chinese leader Xi Jinping visits Washington this week, he will be sitting down with President Donald Trump in a vastly different position than the last time the two men met face-to-face in the United States nearly a decade ago.

At that 2017 summit at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort China was lagging America on multiple fronts and vulnerable to the tech and trade frictions Trump would unleash on it in the coming year.

Now, Xi arrives at the helm of a country that’s transformed. The world’s second largest economy has emerged as a tech heavyweight. Home-grown tech talent is spurring Chinese AI models ever closer to Silicon Valley’s frontier. Beijing-based space firms are launching and landing reuseable rockets with their sights on global champion SpaceX. Companies from energy to AI, robots and memory chips have launched blockbuster stock debuts over the past year.

Tibetan testifies at ranking US Congressional Committee members’ hearing ahead of President Xi Jinping’s arrival

Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit later this week and as Tibetan groups and others prepare protest receptions for him, Ranking Member Ro Khanna of the US House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Ranking Member Jim McGovern of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China jointly held a shadow hearing titled “The Void in China Policy: Why Human Rights Must Be on Trump’s Agenda with Xi at the White House”.

Those who testified at the hearing included Palden Gyal, President of International Tibet Media Organization; Tahir Imin, Founder and Director, Uyghur Post; Yaqiu Wang, Fellow at the Penn Project on the Future of US-China Relations at the University of Pennsylvania; and Jonathan Stivers, US Director, Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong; Commissioner, US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Taiwan is watching closely as Xi and Trump meet and hopes US will keep up its arms sales

As China’s Xi Jinping arrives in Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, Taiwan expressed confidence that U.S. arms sales to the island that Beijing claims as its own will continue — despite China’s pressure.

China has pressed Washington to halt the arms sales, most prominently during a summit in May between Trump and Xi in Beijing. After that meeting, the United States paused the sale of a record-breaking $14 billion package — and Trump described arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with China. Still, the U.S. government and Congress have “repeatedly expressed support for Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities,” Taiwanese Defense Ministry spokesperson Maj. Gen. Chiao Fu-chun told reporters in the southern city of Tainan.

China’s Xi kicks off state visit to Washington on Wednesday with a rare planeside welcome from Trump

When Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington on Wednesday, he’s expected to get a rare greeting from President Donald Trump, who will be on the tarmac to welcome his counterpart’s plane instead of waiting for him to drive up to the White House.

Trump’s decision to greet Xi at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington rather than receiving him at the executive residence shows how far the U.S. president is going to honor China’s leader as he makes his first state visit in more than a decade.

The White House has not released many details about Wednesday’s greeting, but Trump is expected to participate in an arrival ceremony at the base with Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan. The salutation will kick off a three-day visit that’s expected to be saturated with pomp, even by White House standards. The state visit, complete with a formal state dinner at the White House on Thursday, is supposed to reciprocate for the ceremonial grandeur that marked Trump’s May visit to China.

Climate disasters are growing. So are cuts to programs that prepare for them

Sitting on the floor of a makeshift shelter for survivors of Nepal’s deadly recent floods, Tenzin Dolma Ghale said she had nothing left but the clothes she was wearing. Her entire village and members of her family were washed away by the surge of water and debris that killed over 1,450 people and left more than 6,000 missing.

After speaking, she waved a hand and looked at the ground. “It’s all finished,” she said.

Ghale is among millions of people living with the deadly consequences of climate-related disasters. As such disasters intensify, international climate adaptation and disaster preparedness aid programs have been slashed, leaving countries facing billions of dollars in avoidable damage and dwindling recovery funds.

Torbjørn Færøvik: Not everything in China goes according to plan

President Xi Jinping begins an official visit to the United States tomorrow. At a time when so much seems in flux, we often hear that China represents long-term governance and planning, while Western economies embody the opposite.

But is that really true?

The state of China’s property market tells a different story. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 50–60 million completed housing units stand empty. If unfinished units are included, the surplus may amount to 90 million or more. Demolishing residential blocks could therefore become a large and growing industry, Chinese economists predict.

Over the next 25 years, China could lose around 160 million people. Looking even further ahead, to the year 2100, the population could, according to the United Nations’ medium projection, be more than halved—from today’s 1.4 billion to 633 million. The figures are almost impossible to comprehend. China is moving towards a demographic future so momentous that it is without precedent, says David Coleman, professor of demography at the University of Oxford.

Torbjørn Færøvik: Ikke alt skjer etter en plan i Kina

President Xi Jinping innleder i morgen et offisielt besøk i USA. I en tid hvor mye flyter, hører vi ofte at Kina representerer langsiktig styring og planlegging, mens vestlige økonomier står for det motsatte. Men er det sant?

Tilstanden på det kinesiske eiendomsmarkedet forteller en annen historie. Forsiktige beregninger tyder på at minst 50–60 millioner ferdigstilte boligenheter står tomme. Tar vi med uferdige enheter, kan boligoverskuddet være 90 millioner eller mer. Riving av boligblokker kan derfor bli en stor og voksende industri, spår kinesiske økonomer.

I løpet av de kommende 25 årene kan Kina miste rundt 160 millioner innbyggere. Ser vi enda lenger fram, til år 2100, kan folketallet ifølge FNs middelscenario bli halvert fra dagens 1,4 milliarder til 633 millioner. Tallene er nesten ikke til å fatte. Kina beveger seg inn i en demografisk framtid som er så rystende at den savner sidestykke, sier David Coleman, professor i demografi ved universitetet i Oxford.

Nuclear power is back on Southeast Asia's energy agenda

Southeast Asian governments are revisiting nuclear power as electricity consumption raises, exposing the region's dependence on fossil fuels. The rise is largely driven by new factories, electric vehicles and the region's rush to host data centers against the backdrop of countries trying to reduce carbon emissions.

No Southeast Asian nation currently operates a commercial nuclear power plant, but several are placing their bets on nuclear energy and reviving plans that had been stalled for years.

On September 8, Vietnam's state-owned Petrovietnam and South Korea's KEPCO agreed to deepen cooperation on the planned Ninh Thuan 2 nuclear plan in Vietnamt. Six days later, Singapore's government said it was studying nuclear power and small modular reactors (SMRs)with an "open mind", though it stressed that it had not made a decision.

China expands export control on drug precursors ahead of Trump-Xi meeting

China said Tuesday that it is now requiring permits for exports to the United States, Mexico and Canada of two additional chemicals that can be used to make illegal drugs, expanding controls on shipments to the three countries.

The Commerce Ministry and other authorities jointly announced the new regulations ahead of this week’s meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump. The additions bring the number of chemicals under such controls to 18.

The U.S. has called China the world’s largest producer of many of the precursor chemicals used in the illicit production of fentanyl, methamphetamine and other deadly synthetic drugs. It has urged Beijing to take more aggressive action to reduce the flow of unregulated precursor chemicals.

Trump and Xi see tensions flare over AI, trade and Iran but still seek stability

State visits usually occur when two countries are on warm terms, but U.S. President Donald Trump is hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington this week as their economic and tech competition is only escalating, especially through an artificial intelligence race.

Neither expects any grand bargain, but the leaders are expected to play nice in their third meeting since Trump returned to the White House to try to steady fragile ties. That is despite the world’s two largest economies seeking the upper hand on AIdevelopments and trade, while pushing for leverage in persistent hot spots like Iran and Taiwan.

China’s Alibaba unveils new powerful chip and ambitious AI model plans

China’s Alibaba unveiled new artificial intelligence chip technologies and plans for more powerful models on Tuesday, including what it said was China’s most powerful AI chip, days ahead of a meeting between Chinese and U.S. leaders at which competition to lead on AI technology is expected to be a major theme.

Alibaba’s announcement came as U.S. AI leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, are warning that China’s development of AI poses a threat to the United States and calling for an overall slowdown on development of the technology.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is set to arrive in Washington on Wednesday for a state visit and meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, at which AI, trade and tariffs are expected to be discussed.

China expels two top ‘disloyal’ military leaders from Communist Party

China has expelled two top military generals from the Chinese Communist Party on suspicion of corruption and other serious misconduct, becoming the latest senior officials to fall afoul of a significant anti-corruption push by President Xi Jinping.

Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli “seriously violated political discipline and political rules, formed cliques and factions, and were disloyal and dishonest to the party”, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Monday, citing official documents. No details of the alleged crimes were provided.

Investigations into the pair were announced in January, and they were removed from the military in late August. Zhang was long seen as Xi’s closest military ally as second-in-command of the Central Military Commission, China’s supreme command body. Liu was a CMC member and the chief of staff of its Joint Staff Department.

What’s the US–China AI ‘hotline’ that Trump plans to pitch to Xi Jinping?

The United States wants a new “notification mechanism” with China to warn each other when an artificial intelligence incident becomes serious enough to threaten national security.

The proposal, effectively an “AI hotline”, was discussed on Sunday during talks in New York between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, before a summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Washington, DC, this week.

The two leaders are expected to consider establishing a broader US-China dialogue on AI, including the proposed notification system, around which details remain limited.

What to Watch at the Xi-Trump Summit

On September 24, Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, four months after Trump’s state visit to Beijing in May. That meeting produced a set of economic agreements, a new U.S.-China Board of Trade and Board of Investment, an agreement to open a government-to-government dialogue on artificial intelligence, and a commitment by the two leaders to build what both governments calleda “constructive relationship of strategic stability.”

Several consequential elements of the relationship remain unsettled ahead of the September summit. The export-control truce reached in Busan on October 30, 2025—which holds both Washington’s Affiliates Rule and China’s October 9 rare-earth export-control package in abeyance—runs for one year, leaving its future uncertain.

Preparations for a bilateral AI risk-and-safety dialogue are reportedly underway, although its timing, participants, and agenda remain unsettled. And, according to some analysis, Washington and Beijing construe “constructive strategic stability” quite differently. The administration has also delayed announcing the proposed $14 billion U.S. arms sale for Taiwan, despite its having received congressional pre-approval in January.

Call in China to end English's core status sparks debate

From business and academia to social media and entertainment — English is considered the dominant global language. One in five people on Earth actively uses this lingua franca. In China, a mathematics professor specializing in vector algebra is now challenging this dominance in no uncertain terms. Tang Jiafeng believes that English should be abolished as a core subject in elementary schools, secondary schools and universities.

Tang is convinced that no other country in the world has placed as much importance on English as China has.

"Our children desperately begin learning English even before they have properly mastered their native language. Yet we are a civilization that dates back thousands of years. English is just a tool. It's enough to be able to use it. The tradition of revering and emulating Western cultures must come to an end," Tang says in social media.

Trump decries Democrats as ‘communists,’ even as he looks to impress China’s communist leader

Communism, President Donald Trump says, is the greatest threat the U.S. has ever faced. This summer, citing similarly grave concerns, he took the rare step of delivering a primetime address to the nation, accusing China of “sinister election meddling” in 2020 and reviving his yearslong push to dispute his loss in that year’s election.

Even as Trump seeks to decry Democrats as communists ahead of November’s midterm elections, he is rolling out the red carpet this week for Chinese President Xi Jinping, the leader of the world’s most powerful communist country.

The state visit comes as the president himself has increasingly directed his administration to take large stakes in private companies to try to stimulate the economy — something even some Republicans decry as corporate socialism. The contradictions between Trump’s words and actions risk muddying Republican attack lines on Democrats.

China and the US are competing for AI dominance but have shared concerns over safety

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, leaders of rival nations in a race to dominate artificial intelligence, are expected to meet this week against a backdrop of rising concerns about the threats that rogue AI could pose to humanity.

The hopes for finding common ground on concerns around global AI safety are clouded by competition between the two countries. As China narrows the technology gap with the U.S., each country has expressed concern over how AI in the other’s hands could hurt them.

“The U.S.-China conversation in AI is getting caught in the ups and downs in the broader U.S.-China relationship,” said Scott Singer, co-director of the China AI Initiative at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Bessent calls meeting with China Vice Premier He Lifeng ‘successful’ ahead of Trump-Xi summit

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday he had a successful meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the U.S. this week. The talks covered artificial intelligence and trade, among other issues ahead of Trump and Xi’s Sept. 24 summit in Washington, D.C.

Bessent, emerging from the meeting alongside U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, said the two sides had discussed setting up a “U.S.-China AI Dialogue,” with the U.S. proposing the two countries set up a notification mechanism for incidents regarding AI. The notification mechanism would be for incidents rising “up to a national security level from AI,” he said.