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| An AI-generated fake, nonetheless, not entirely false |
On the surface, the recent summit
between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in Beijing did not appear to have produced
much.
There was no public communique or any joint statement after all the closed-door meetings.
Nonetheless, Xi and Trump’s opening addresses and their speeches at the state banquet were widely reported.
For the opening addresses, Xi cautioned the danger of the Thucydides trap and need for world powers to work together for the better good of humanity. He also warned that the Taiwan issue was “the most important issue” in China-US relations. And if Taiwan were mishandled, the two countries could face “clashes and even conflicts.” Xi also stressed that China’s development was “compatible with making America great again,” an apparent attempt to frame Chinese growth as complementary rather than threatening to US interests.
Trump, in the public portions of the meeting and afterwards, emphasized expanding US access to Chinese markets and coordination regarding Iran and keeping the Strait of Hormuz open.
At the state banquet, Xi described US-China relations as the most important bilateral relationship in the world and toasted the bright future of China-US relations. Trump, in return, called the relationship one of the most consequential relationships in world history. He also invited Xi and Peng Liyuan to visit the White House in September. Interestingly, he also mentioned the statue of Kung-tze in US’s Supreme Court building and the role the US helped to establish Tsinghua University.
Any tangible outcome?
Trump desperately needs China to do a couple of things to avert his declining popularity which appears to foretell heavy losses for the Republican in the coming mid-term elections, amongst them – the war in Iran, the availability of rare earth elements, the Treasury bonds, and anger of the US farmers and the Chinese “boycott” of its semiconductor chips.
(And ironically even though the US are on the begging end, its Treasury and Commerce Secretaries were still busy introducing all sorts of sanctions days before the summit.)
On the surface, not really. Trump was quite tongue-tight when asked about the Taiwan demand from China. But judging from what the US side has scored, Trump must have given Xi some degree of assurances.
Both sides publicly agreed to continue a more “constructive” and “strategically stable” relationship, after a very turbulent 2025 marked by tariff escalation and tensions over Taiwan. China especially emphasised this language.
On trade and investment mechanisms, both governments appear to have agreed in principle to establish some form of councils for trade and investment discussions – essentially institutional channels to manage disputes and coordinate commerce.
Third is on agricultural trade
reopening. This is probably the most substantive practical outcome so far for
Trump. China signaled tariff reductions on some US agricultural products. China
resumed or expanded purchases of US soybeans, wheat and sorghum. Registrations
for hundreds of US beef plants were also renewed or approved. Reuters reported
that both sides reached preliminary understandings on tariff reductions and
non-tariff barriers affecting agriculture.
The Trump side claimed China would make major purchases of Boeing aircraft, US agricultural goods and energy products.
The two countries will also hold continued dialogue on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Trump claimed Xi agreed Iran should reopen or keep open the Strait of Hormuz. China’s public statements were much more cautious and avoided endorsing the US position directly. Still, both sides evidently coordinated diplomatically on the issue.
Much of this is about announced intentions, rather than binding agreements.
Throughout the visit, Xi hosted Trump and his team with great dignity and confidence. The talk about Trump being snubbed deliberately because Xi was not at the airport to receive him was all nonsense. For the entire post-1949 history of the People’s Republic, I believe no top Chinese leader has personally gone to the airport to receive a visiting foreign head of state or government. Trump was received by Vice President Han Zheng, which was the appropriate protocol.
This time around, Xi played tourist guide to Trump at the Temple of Heaven and walked Trump around Zhongnanhai, which is the enclave for top Chinese leaders.
Two things may be worth mentioning – One, Marco Rubio’s appearance despite sanction by China, and two, Pete Hegseth’s taut face when being introduced to Xi during the welcoming ceremony. The former simply reflected China’s pragmatic way of handling foreign affairs, and the latter, a typical western kurang ajar’s attitude. As for many in Trump’s delegation, it was a case of Liu Lao-lao seeing the China for the first time.
As for Trump, he did behave well. But his anxiousness is subtly written all over his face.
Behind all the smiles, America’s paranoia about China remains difficult to overcome. The picture above may be fake, but it is true that members of the US delegation accompanying Trump were instructed to discard all China-issued items — badges, lapel pins, credentials, commemorative items, gifts and souvenirs — before boarding Air Force One. The mistrust is evident. To an East Asian like me, it comes across simply as an act of insensitivity.
Xi obviously knows this: No sooner had Air Force One become airborne, there is a danger that Trump would do a U-turn on everything that he had undertaken to Xi. But I suspect Xi is nonchalant about it. China does not need the US that much; it is the US that needs China to halt its decline.
During the state banquet given by Xi to Trump, the former mentioned a statue on the eastern pediment of the building of the US Court. At the very center of the sculptural group are three great historical “lawgivers” carved side by side: from left to right, Confucius, Moses, and the ancient Greek lawgiver Solon. The significance of the statue of Confucius can mainly be understood from the following perspectives.
The designer of the pediment
sculptures, sculptor Hermon Atkins MacNeil, clearly explained the concept
behind his work. He believed that “law is an element of civilisation, and
American law naturally inherits or derives from earlier civilisations.” Thus,
the sculptural group was intended to show that American law and civilisation
did not emerge out of nowhere, but drew inspiration from much older
civilisations.
The choice of Confucius, Moses, and
Solon was meant to represent the three great sources of civilisation: Eastern
civilisation, Hebrew civilisation, and ancient Greek civilisation. By placing
these three figures at the centre, the designer sought to convey that the
American legal tradition is rooted in the oldest foundations of human
civilisation.
Trump mentioned this during a state
banquet speech in order to highlight the long-standing cultural ties between
China and the US. At the time, he also cited historical details — for example,
that the American founding father Benjamin Franklin had once published excerpts
of the “Sayings of Confucius” in a newspaper — as evidence of the influence of
Chinese culture on early American political thought.
It is worth noting that, in the
official context of the US Supreme Court, Confucius is identified as a
“lawgiver.” This differs from the more familiar Chinese understanding of him as
the “Great Sage and Teacher.” Sinologists have suggested that this reflects how
American designers of the time viewed Confucius: as a symbolic representative
of Chinese civilisation and a model of morality and social order.
Trump also touched on the US help in the establishment of the university. President Trump's recent remarks reference a specific and historically significant chapter in US-China relations: the use of returned Boxer Indemnity funds to establish what is now Tsinghua University.
The original source of funding is directly tied to a complex and painful period in Chinese history, i.e., the Boxer Rebellion and the Boxer Indemnity. In 1900, known as the 庚子年 (Gengzi year), this anti-foreign movement occurred in China but was soon suppressed by an eight-nation alliance, including the US. The conflict ended with the Qing Dynasty being forced to sign the 1901 Boxer Protocol (part of the 辛丑条约) and a crippling reparation of 450 million taels of silver (over 980 million taels with interest) was imposed on China over 39 years as punishment.
The US share amounted to over $24
million (7.4% of the total)
US officials came to
believe that the amount demanded from China was "excessive". American
missionary and educator Arthur Henderson Smith suggested to President
Theodore Roosevelt that the surplus funds be used to educate Chinese students
in the US. This idea was supported by others who urged that educating China's
future leaders would yield significant "spiritual and commercial"
influence for the US.
The Qing ambassador to the US actively
lobbied the US government for the remission, stressing the powerful positive
impact such an act of goodwill would have.
The culmination of these efforts was
President Theodore Roosevelt signing a congressional resolution
in 1908 to return the surplus of approximately $11.6
million to China, to be used specifically for educating Chinese students
in America.
With this dedicated fund, the Qing
government established a plan to select and prepare students for study in the US.
A school named
Tsinghua College was built near the former royal garden in 1911. It was meant
to serve as a preparatory school to send students to the US. It continued to
evolve. After the Xinhai Revolution of 1912, it was renamed Tsinghua
School. It later added a university section in 1925 and a research institute
for Chinese studies. Finally, in 1928, it was officially
renamed National Tsinghua University.
The founding of
Tsinghua is not a simple story of charity. The "indemnity" itself
originated from a war and an unequal treaty, making Tsinghua what many of its
early scholars called a "monument to national humiliation".
Nonetheless, the return of the funds did help to see a generation of China's
top intellectual talent, producing leaders who would drive the country's
modernization. None of the other members of the Alliance showed any sympathy.
The funding of
Tsinghua is an undeniable fact of history, and as Trump noted, it establishes a
tangible, century-old link between the U.S. and a top Chinese institution, a
connection other presidents like George W. Bush have also referenced.
End
Never in the field of western journalism was so much reported by so many on so little.
ReplyDeleteConveying an anxious and subdued mien of a salesman needing to make monthly quota, Trump brought along all the top US CEOs and his key cabinet members and affected an insouciant but respectful familiarity that implicitly recognises China's all-terrain supremacy despite all that US bipartisan machinations had tried to disrupt, contain and diminish.
What may thus be distilled is that China came out recognized by the US itself and thus the rest of the world as its peer power. If anything, the re-ascendancy of China has arrived and her chapter in history if not in the I-Ching is completed.
Amusingly, Beijing relented on Rubio gatecrashing to attend the summit despite a sanction on him and that was deftly done by a small if apt change to his name from 卢 to 鲁, signifying 'rash, rude and clumsy'. It was said on his appointment as US sec-state, Beijing's only admonition to him was 'behave'.
While the coverage was less thunderous than that accorded Nixon's visit which bridged the gulf of geopolitics, it was nevertheless sufficient to show China's precise preparation to welcome Trump's entourage - from an opening 21-gun salute and the disciplined military parade juxtaposed with enthusiastic schoolchildren, followed by a tour of all of China's emperors prayer ground and the requisite summit meeting, duly rewarded with a sumptuous banquet right down to playing Trump's YMCA and his banquet waitress thoughtfully pre-laying a backrest at his seat (which he rebuffed), finally capped with a four-eyed and quiet perambulation inside Zhongnanhai, the exclusive enclave of China's leaders over the eons with trees as old as 400 years. Even Zhou EnLai would have approved the precision if not resonance.
Yet the two ocean-liners passed by each other in the night. China proposed a bilateral strategic stability framework that will smoothen relations beyond the tenures of both US and China leadership so as to avoid future confrontations, thus serving the peoples of both nations into the next generations; the US however narrated how Chinese food has done better in the US than all the US' food chains combined.
One tenor was to solve problems and spark mutual growth, the other to maintain status quo with more bickering. One horizon was for the millennium; the other for the midterm elections this November, before which Trump's invitation to Xi to visit Washington DC in September. The implicit conclusion to draw is the persistence of US mistrust that is the thorn against any renormalization.
Which was why the Thucydides Trap was forewarned this time when it was dismissed before. Aside the relentless US intent to label China as its sole rival to be outcompeted at expense of full collaboration for mutual if not global benefit, the other matter of Taiwan must have also degraded for it to be brought up.
It's not just that the US had sold Taipei USD11 Billion of weapons and another USD14 Billion is on the table which Trump on his return said would be used as his negotiation card against China. It's also about the critical matter of China's sovereignty and ascendancy that the bipartisan US is still attempting to disrupt and diminish.
2/3
ReplyDeleteThe instigations for rebellion from Tibet to Xinjiang and to HongKong so as to dismiss China's One Country-Two Systems autonomous region solution for Taiwan remains nothing but interference in China's sovereignty and internal affairs after the US itself had already admitted China did not interfere in US elections, not to forget trying to prevent China's technology growth is a fool's errand.
It must be out of malfeasance that the US' position on Taiwan still chooses to define China's sovereigty on ideological grounds. The US Congress is implicitly adamant against China's only government, the CPC, which has delivered so much for her peoples and the world and certainly beyond what successive US governments have for their own.
Yet the US was signatory to the Cairo Declaration of 1941 and the Potsdam Declaration of 1945 by which Taiwan was to be returned to China. So why hasn't it until now?
Could it unbelievably be that the US still recognizes 'China' as Taiwan with 23 million Chinese and not China with 1,400 million Chinese? Yet if the US can say it doesn't want to change China's CPC regime, how can it then not recognize China's CPC which has just hosted its leaders as well as the KMT's leader who is amenable to peaceful reunification, the same KMT party which had US relations back to those Declaration days - of international if not civilizational legality?
Mayhaps that's why Trump tried his hand at being ambiguous about the US' strategic ambiguity on Taiwan by saying 'that place run by that person', implying its insignificance in US-China-rest of Asia's order. He also added the US was 7,000 miles from Taiwan which was only 100 miles from its mainland and any US conflict with China would at best see the US be busted.
Needless to say and upon hearing that in consternation, the man with the surname 鲁 was quick to intrude there would be no change to the status quo.
So what's next? The ball is in Trump's court. He spoke to Yasukuni's Takaichi for 15 minutes after his Beijing visit, too short a time to convince her to mend ties with China which she has downgraded in her diplomatic blackbook to 'important neighbour'.
3/3
ReplyDeleteWhat else did he get from the summit? The 3B's of more sales in beans, beef and boeing's. Some USD17 Billion/USD45 Billion of the first, more imports of the second, and 200/750 of the third when China needs 5,800 for the next 30 years. Nothing was said of Nvidia's H200 GPU stacks nor of any possibility for its Blackwell and Rubin chips nor ASML's EUV lithography machines.
In sum, the Taiwan question persists; if he accepts China's position and cancels/delays the US14 Billion sale to Lai the ultra-splittist, the US democrats will make it an issue at the midterm election unless he can pull a brave rabbit out of his hat and the Democrat's leader Newsom can see the big picture of how critical are China's supplies to the US' inflationary economy. For all anyone knows, gas price hikes might well be the Republican's nemesis. And because Trump had earlier said the US can handle Iran alone, China did not commit a helping hand.
As for Tsinghua, one of the great universities today, it is rich to say the US was benevolent while at the same time hoping its donation would sway for Chinese goodwill. After all the money came from the Chinese themselves whose land was taken, people killed, reparations extorted and nationhood maligned just for resisting foreign usurpation of its sovereignty by the 8-Coalition. In one instance, an American soldier entered a Chinese household and wiped out everyone.
Because of her history bled by foreign powers, China has to be strong. Even if there were other choices, the CPC would have had to be constituted because the country was being fragmented and weakened. Today, gone are those days when the US sanctioned Japan, Japan attacked China, the US bombed Tokyo, the pilots crash-landed on China, the Chinese saved them, and Japan dropped viruses from its Unit 731 devil's brigade on them, killing thousands. Will Takaichi in her remilitarisation of Japan atone for that, not to forget Japan's most brutal massacre of 300,000 civilians in Nanjing in just six weeks or its servitude of comfort women from Korea, not to forget 5,000 from the island of Taiwan, formerly called Formosa? Because, in the tradition of Hirohito's uncle Prince Asuka who played golf and died of old age after co-commanding the massacre, she's the mischief-maker of Asia so - unlikely. The anti-China hawks are the Japan-made springs of the Thucydides Trap.
China has offered the US the strategic stability she offered other nations. She trades amically with all and helps the Global South poor, now sundered even more by the US-Israel's reckless attack on Iran, formerly the Persian Empire which encompassed Iraq, home to Nebuchadnezzar who applied the Code of Hammurabi as his legal framework. Where was the US then? What is the US now?
Conclusion: Whatever the US may do, China has moved on. From strength to strength, global relevance, safe harbour, international acceptance.