{"id":42450,"date":"2026-05-15T08:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=42450"},"modified":"2026-05-15T08:22:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:22:29","slug":"trump%e2%80%91xi-summit-cautious-progress-on-trade-ties-and-some-win%e2%80%91wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/trump%e2%80%91xi-summit-cautious-progress-on-trade-ties-and-some-win%e2%80%91wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2011Xi summit: Cautious progress on trade, ties and some \u2018win\u2011wins\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yan Bennett<\/a>, American University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump departed China on May 15, 2026, after a two-day summit<\/a> with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that was scrutinized from every angle for clues on where the relationship is heading.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump hailed the trip as \u201cincredible<\/a>,\u201d while Xi remarked that it marked a \u201cnew bilateral relationship<\/a>.\u201d Other observers were a little less enthusiastic, noting that no major breakthroughs<\/a> were evident at the highly anticipated meeting of the world\u2019s two most powerful political leaders.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Conversation turned to Yan Bennett, an expert in U.S.-China relations<\/a> and author of \u201cAmerican Policy Discourses on China<\/a>,\u201d to provide her three big takeaways from the summit.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taiwan: Tough(ish) talk but status quo in place<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

No one really expected there to be movement on Taiwan \u2013 which mainland China lays claims over<\/a> \u2013 although it is clear that Beijing would like the United States to make a firmer stance against the island moving toward a declaration of independence, or for the U.S. to expressly demand reunification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what we got was Beijing reiterating that Taiwan remained a priority and a core interest. Xi did this on the first day of the summit<\/a>, noting that the Taiwan \u201cquestion\u201d remained \u201cthe most important issue in China-U.S. relations,\u201d and that any mishandling of it could lead to \u201cclashes and even conflicts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this was aimed at two things. First, Xi has a domestic audience he needs to address, and Taiwan has long been important to Chinese rhetoric. The Chinese Communist Party has around 100 million members<\/a>, many of whom would have expected Xi to talk tough on Taiwan \u2013 and it was those people he was largely talking to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he was also signaling to the U.S. that it shouldn\u2019t support Taiwanese independence. And that won\u2019t ruffle any feathers in Washington. Indeed, the 2025 National Security Strategy<\/a> stressed that the U.S. opposed unilateral action on Taiwan from \u201ceither party\u201d \u2013 a signal to Beijing that it opposed Taiwan declaring independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Taiwanese soldiers walk past a Sky Sword II Land-based Air Defense Missile in Taichung on Jan. 27, 2026. I-Hwa Cheng \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trump did mention arms deals to Taiwan. But the U.S.\u2019s declaratory policy since the Reagan administration<\/a> is that it doesn\u2019t allow Beijing to enter discussions about what weapons Washington sells to Taiwan. And that hasn\u2019t changed at all, nor has the U.S.\u2019s treaty commitment to Taiwan since 1979<\/a> that requires the U.S. to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rhetoric aside, everyone is happy with the status quo on Taiwan \u2013 it is in no one\u2019s interest for it to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But talk of Taiwan has been muddied a little by Xi\u2019s determination to modernize the People\u2019s Liberation Army<\/a>. The Chinese president has laid out a series of benchmarks including that the PLA should be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027. This has been misinterpreted in the U.S. under the so-called \u201cDavidson window<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a concept that has it that China is intent on invading by that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, China is nowhere near able to do so. It doesn\u2019t have a \u201cblue water navy<\/a>\u201d able to operate without port assistance, and the island is incredibly difficult to invade \u2013 it only has two places where you can land, and only at certain times of the year. It is also very mountainous. Taiwan is also slowly building its defenses<\/a> \u2013 and learning a lot from Ukraine\u2019s war with Russia \u2013 with the intention of becoming \u201cindigestable\u201d to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xi\u2019s modernization timeline also states that the PLA should be a \u201cworld class military<\/a>\u201d \u2013 taken to be a peer to the U.S. \u2013 by 2049. But the fact that it spends more on internal security than it does on defense indicates where the CCP\u2019s true interests lay \u2013 in domestic security rather than external capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trade: Tamped down expectations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The big picture is that the U.S. and China have been trying to restabilize what was until fairly recently<\/a> a very good relationship in terms of economic ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both sides have clear priorities to that extent. China wants to regain the American market it had in the 1990s and early 2000s \u2013 and certainly reverse the trend since 2018\u2019s trade war<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump since his first administration has made it clear that he sees Chinese control over supply chains and the trade imbalance as a national security issue. Washington also wants to address unfair trade practices, such as the requirement that American companies hand over<\/a> blueprints, trade secrets, customer lists, marketing plans and more to operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what was achieved in the summit? On the surface, very little. There was some movement on sales of U.S. beef to China<\/a>. And Trump announced that Beijing would buy 200 aircraft from Boeing<\/a> \u2013 lower than the 500 that had been earlier touted in media reports. And several Chinese companies agreed to buy Nvidia microchips<\/a> \u2013 a continuation of a process that began in late 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn\u2019t seem much, and it was telling that Trump himself wasn\u2019t being very \u201cTrumpian\u201d on what could be achieved during the summit. He wasn\u2019t promising the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But importantly, Xi and Trump agreed to establish a Board of Trade and Board of Investment<\/a> \u2013 intended to create a pathway forward to more trade in the months to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Tim Cook andJensen Huang, CEOs of Apple and Nvidia walk through the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Johannes Neudecker\/picture alliance via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A lot of focus will be on technology. China is about 18 months behind the U.S. in microchip development. Some have questioned whether<\/a> U.S. companies should be selling chips to China, amid fears that China could steal the intellectual property and be able to use higher-technology chips for defense reasons. The U.S. position is it can\u2019t allow Huawei \u2013 China\u2019s telecom giant \u2013 to take over the whole Chinese market, so it will only allow the sale of what it considers appropriate-level Nvidia chips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Military matters: Washington wants to talk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the U.S. always kept the military lines of communications open<\/a> to avert a catastrophic incident. This hasn\u2019t been the case with Beijing and Washington. We saw that in 2001 when a U.S. aircraft collided<\/a> with a Chinese jet; and again over the \u201cChinese spy balloon incident<\/a>\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington is seeking to open up a line of communication on military matters, and that is probably why U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was there in Beijing. Indeed, it is highly unusual for a defense secretary to be at such a summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attends a state banquet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, 2026. Brendan Smialowski\/ AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not that Trump believes he needs China\u2019s help on military matters. He made that clear when asked about possible Beijing assistance prior<\/a> to the summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, little news came out of the summit on Iran. China has criticized<\/a> the U.S. over the war, but has also quietly been telling Tehran to stop bombing Gulf countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite some commentary suggesting<\/a> that Beijing benefits from the U.S. being bogged down in the Middle East, what Xi will want is a resolution before the economic fallout bites in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s stockpile of Iranian oil will only last a few more weeks and then oil price rises will hit China like a brick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yan Bennett<\/a>, Professorial Lecturer, American University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yan Bennett, American University President Donald Trump departed China on May 15, 2026, after a two-day summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that was scrutinized from every angle for clues on where the relationship is heading. Trump hailed the trip as \u201cincredible,\u201d while Xi remarked that it marked a \u201cnew bilateral relationship.\u201d Other observers were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":42451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,826,277,46,10,25,296,36,4,38],"tags":[145,16514,479,885,891,886,860,16513,6567,1602,15878,9734,1597,2946],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42452,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42450\/revisions\/42452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}