"Second Sichuan-Xi Meeting" has a perfect trick! Although President Trump appeared to be receiving a high-level reception in front of the camera, behind the scenes, a highly dramatic and tense diplomatic confrontation took place. According to foreign media reports, China originally planned carefully to get Chinese President Xi Jinping to personally "review" the historical documents of the three U.S.-China communiqués when Trump accompanied him to the U.S. National Archives, in order to highlight the U.S.'s commitment to China as early as the last century to "reduce arms sales to Taiwan." However, after this plan was exposed in the media and attracted attention from all walks of life, the United States took a hard stance. In the end, what Xi Jinping will face in the Archives Bureau will be the "three founding documents" of the United States - the "Declaration of Independence", the "U.S. Constitution" and the "Bill of Rights", which means "washing his face".
According to foreign media reports, Beijing’s initial plan was to use the narrative framework of the so-called “constructive strategic stable relationship between the United States and China” to suppress the United States’ “let go” of Taiwan by repeating the three communiqués, and ultimately to “stop militarizing Taiwan” and delay or stop arms sales to Taiwan. This would serve as a stepping stone for the United States to withdraw from the first island chain under Beijing’s setting, further adding legitimacy to Xi Jinping’s grand historical path map of “rising in the east and falling in the west.” However, the United States seems to have discovered such an attempt long ago, and even created a drama of "catching a turtle in a urn" in the specific arrangements of the entire state visit.
Experts believe that in this Trump-Xi meeting, on the surface, Trump gave all possible "highest standards", which made Xi Jinping and his delegation smile from ear to ear. However, in different corners of the agenda, various key nodes where China cannot get any benefits are framed, allowing China to savor it carefully, and also for the international community to see. For example, the "Three Founding Documents" that Washington pulled out as national treasures this time imply in a very symbolic way: the true greatness of the country is based on the realization of freedom and democracy and the legitimacy of the people's authorization, rather than the expansion of authoritarianism.
In addition, this little trick instantly transformed the entire unprecedented grand reception, making it more like a leader leading a backward country to understand the civilized world. The sophisticated political layout of the United States transformed this trip, originally intended for China to promote its national dignity, into a silent but highly targeted value education for the authoritarian system.
In addition to falling into the trap set by the United States at the symbolic level, China has not tasted the sweetness of the substantive discussion issues. Experts have concluded that the tariff reduction that Beijing is eager to strive for has not received a commitment to substantial adjustments, and there has been no substantial progress on the key high-tech export controls and AI competition issues that are stuck. Xi Jinping may have walked on the red carpet during this trip, including being able to say in the lobby of the White House that "without Sino-US cooperation, many problems in the world will be difficult to solve." He talked a lot about "Thucydides" that he is not familiar with. However, in the absence of a substantive transcript, even if Xinhua News Agency and other Beijing loudspeakers sang the "Eastern Rise and West Descendance" song, he finally "accepted" a profound lesson in American English and democracy in person.
