Xi Jinping’s Impending Visit to Washington: A Waste of Time?

 

Preparations are clearly underway for Xi to visit Washington on September 24, albeit only for a day. However, it is interesting to note that China has not officially confirmed the visit.

Many are asking: given Donald Trump and his team’s constant flip-flopping, why would Xi waste his time?

Considering Xi’s Kung-tze-Sun-tze mindset, I can think of three possibilities.

a. An optical dividend that can be had
Xi can use the occasion to contrast his leadership with Trump's — without saying a word about it — even though it is probably not Xi's principal reason for going.

Xi's political style is controlled, deliberate and long-term; Trump's is highly personalised, improvisational and theatrical. Put the two beside each other before the world's cameras and the contrast largely creates itself. Beijing would probably be too disciplined to make the comparison explicit, especially because Chinese officials appear to be deliberately moderating criticism of Washington before the summit.

The symbolism could be particularly useful to China internationally. Xi can appear in Washington as the head of a government that is prepared to negotiate calmly with an increasingly turbulent United States.

Of course, there are real matters on the table — tariffs, trade, technology, AI, rare earths, Taiwan and geopolitical questions — but the sceptic in me says that whatever may be agreed to by Trump will always be reversed once Xi’s plane takes off from the tarmac for home. It is a waste of time.

b. A godsend that is to be protected
Trump’s midterm election hurdles are high. I am pretty sure China sees considerable advantage in keeping Trump politically viable and giving him enough victories to preserve a transactional relationship that Beijing has learned how to manage.

Xi is said to be bringing an unusually large delegation of Chinese business leaders to Washington. This will offer the White House potential economic wins ahead of the midterm elections.

China has also just bought roughly one million tonnes of American soybeans ahead of the visit, while a Chinese company has announced a new 20-year U.S. LNG contract.

All these suggest that Beijing understands perfectly well that giving Trump commercially attractive announcements on September 24 could help him politically.

Between Trump and the Democrats, we know who the worse devil to China is. The former’s political and territorial ambitions, doubts over America's security commitments in West and East Asia, trade conflicts with partners, and a more transactional approach to alliances can weaken precisely the coalition Washington would otherwise need to contain China's rise. Most leaders have growing doubts over U.S. reliability.

So, Beijing could simultaneously oppose many of Trump's policies towards China while regarding aspects of his presidency as strategically useful. Those two positions are not contradictory.

c. Xi producing Kim Jong Un for Trump
Trump is deeply infatuated with Kim. He has repeatedly said he wants another meeting with Kim this year. Xi certainly has channels to Kim. North Korea, however, has responded cautiously and appears determined to set its own conditions.

This possibility fits Trump’s psychology and Xi's Sun-tze instinct. Trump attaches enormous importance to personal summitry and has repeatedly spoken of his relationship with Kim. If Xi could quietly help make another Trump-Kim meeting happen, he would be giving Trump something Trump personally values greatly — at relatively little direct cost to China. It could also restore Beijing's position as the indispensable intermediary in Northeast Asian diplomacy.

Trump needs the September meeting to announce economic achievements he can take into the midterms, and perhaps another dramatic meeting with Kim. Xi has the capacity to help with all three. That, to me, makes the visit potentially far more consequential than many who call it meaningless suggest.

A possible last-minute abortion?
It was reported somewhere that Xi might cancel his trip to Washington if the U.S. goes ahead with its arms sales to Taiwan. But I doubt this is true. After all, no sooner will Xi return home than Trump may do an about-turn.

It was reported that Beijing had told Washington that Xi could cancel the September meeting if the U.S. approved new arms sales to Taiwan before the summit. I think it is more likely to be diplomatic leverage than an ultimatum requiring Trump permanently to stop supplying Taiwan.

Xi cannot arrive in Washington immediately after Trump has approved a large new arms package for Taiwan. Domestically and internationally, it would make Xi look as though China's most important “red line” could simply be ignored. So Beijing wants the sale postponed at least until after Xi's visit. A reported US$14 billion package is presently under review.

Xi knows Trump could reverse himself the moment the visit is over. Indeed, there is precedent for exactly this sort of sequencing. After Trump's May meeting with Xi in Beijing, Trump said he had not yet decided whether the Taiwan arms sale would proceed, even though his administration had already authorised it. In other words, the issue can conveniently be put into the refrigerator during a summit and taken out again afterwards.

Trump’s precariousness in the midterm elections
Trump looks very precarious. But there are two different questions: 1. Whether Republicans lose Congress, and 2. Whether Trump himself loses his grip on the Republican Party. On the first, he is in genuine danger; on the second, much less so.

As of 15 September 2026, the clearest warning sign is Trump's own standing. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll puts his approval at only 35%, after touching a career low of 33% in late August. More importantly for the midterms, Democrats lead Republicans 44% to 37% on the generic congressional ballot. Democrats have even edged ahead, 38%-37%, when voters are asked which party they trust more on the economy — traditionally an important Republican advantage.

The House looks particularly dangerous for Trump

Republicans currently have an extraordinarily narrow 219-214 House majority, including an independent who caucuses with them. Cook Political Report's September 11 ratings classify 21 House seats as Toss Ups — and 16 of those are presently Republican-held, compared with only five Democratic-held seats. That is an uncomfortable defensive position.

Indeed, Cook wrote earlier this month that the most plausible scenario had become a “really bad” election for Republicans, potentially costing them roughly 26–35 House seats, although that is an analytical projection rather than a forecast of an exact result.

So, if the election were held under today's conditions, a Democratic takeover of the House would appear almost certain.

The Senate is no longer safe either

The Senate originally looked considerably safer for Republicans. They currently hold 53 seats, against 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats. Democrats therefore need a net gain of four seats to take outright control.

But even that firewall has weakened. It was reported that what Republicans had regarded as a fairly comfortable Senate defence has turned into a genuinely open contest, with Democratic opportunities appearing even in states such as Texas and Iowa. Cook currently identifies nine principal Senate battlegrounds, six of them Republican-held and three Democratic-held.

Yes, the Senate might be harder for Democrats to capture than the House, because they must win several difficult states simultaneously. But it is certainly no longer implausible that Trump could lose both chambers.

But there is a bigger problem…
It is the economy — compounded by the Iran War.

Trump's weakness is not simply personal dislike. The prolonged Iran war has disrupted oil supplies and pushed American fuel prices sharply higher, while inflation and borrowing costs remain politically painful. His approval deterioration has accelerated since the Iran war began.

That is particularly dangerous in a midterm because voters can use congressional elections as a referendum on a president without having to decide whether they prefer an alternative presidential candidate. Trump himself has effectively encouraged this by telling Republicans to behave as though he is on the ballot.

His recent promise of a $5,000 “Trump dividend” if Republicans retain Congress looks like a sick politician’s last rabbit out of the hat. In the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, 63% of Americans opposed it, including four in ten Republicans.

What would defeat actually mean for Trump?

If Republicans lose only the House, Trump remains president and still controls the executive branch, but much of his legislative programme becomes extremely difficult. A Democratic House would also acquire subpoena and investigative powers and could potentially initiate impeachment proceedings.

If Republicans lose the Senate as well, the consequences become substantially greater: Democrats could obstruct many judicial and executive appointments, control committees and investigations, and essentially put Trump on the defensive for the remaining two years of his presidency.

If he loses both chambers badly, I think the political interpretation would be severe. Because Trump has deliberately made these midterms about himself, Republicans could hardly blame an anonymous congressional campaign. It would amount to voters delivering a national rebuke to the second Trump presidency.

There is an important qualification, however: electoral weakness is not the same thing as weakness inside the Republican Party. Trump continues to dominate the GOP. Even after a bad midterm, I would not expect Republican politicians suddenly to abandon him en masse. Many owe their nominations, political identities and voter bases to the MAGA movement.

So, my assessment today would be: Trump is politically vulnerable, the House is in serious danger, and even the Senate is now at risk. He is not yet facing political collapse, but a two-chamber defeat on November 3 would leave him a dramatically weakened president for his final two years.

Maybe he can start a world war. He might then even try to suspend the U.S. Constitution and remain President for as long as the war lasts.

End