Assessment of Trump's Beijing Summit with Xi Jinping
Quick Look
- Evan Medeiros assesses Donald Trump's Beijing summit with Xi Jinping, stating it reaffirmed existing power dynamics rather than changing them.
- A confident China set the agenda, while the US secured soft purchase commitments.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
Dr. Evan Medeiros, an expert in Asia studies and US-China relations at Georgetown University, previously held significant roles in the National Security Council and advised on Asia-Pacific policy. He has participated in multiple US-China leader meetings.
Dr Evan Medeiros is the Penner family chair in Asia studies and the Cling family distinguished fellow in US-China studies at Georgetown University. He has served as the National Security Council’s director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, and later as special assistant to the president and senior director for Asia.
Medeiros was former president Barack Obama’s top adviser on the Asia-Pacific and was previously a policy adviser to Hank Paulson when he was Treasury secretary. He has also held senior positions at Eurasia Group and the RAND Corporation.
What is your assessment of Donald Trump’s Beijing summit with Xi Jinping, and what will US-China relations look like after the visit?
I have been involved in three US-China summits, and more than a dozen US-China leaders’ meetings between 2009 and 2015, and I am confident in stating that these summits tend to reaffirm the underlying power dynamics more than change them.
This US-China summit did far more to reflect – not change – the existing power dynamics: a confident, strategically focused China that set the agenda and extracted a valuable framing concession (G2-ish); and a US side that came for trade deals, got soft commitments on purchases that should have been prearranged.
Open Questions
- What specific trade deals were discussed and what are the implications of the 'soft commitments'?
- How will China's agenda-setting role at the summit influence future US-China interactions?
- What are the long-term implications of reaffirming existing power dynamics for US-China relations?
