WASHINGTON, September 19 — A summit between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping is set for Washington next week, and the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis has published its preview of what the two leaders will bring to the table. The article, “What to Watch at the Xi-Trump Summit,” appeared on September 18 in collaboration with the online magazine ChinaFile.
It examines trade and technology, Taiwan and regional security as the likely dominant issues, and looks past the meeting itself to the factors that will define U.S.-China relations once Xi leaves Washington. The contributing experts were Neil Thomas, Lizzi C.
Lee, Craig Allen, Paul Triolo, Helen Toner, Lyle Morris and Jing Qian.
Beijing’s reading of the moment
Thomas, a senior fellow on Chinese politics, wrote that Beijing sees the present moment as a “golden opportunity to accelerate industrial self-reliance and strengthen its geoeconomic leverage while limiting further U.S. pressure.” Many Chinese strategists, he said, regard the American president as a relatively benign figure in Washington from Beijing’s standpoint. More hawkish officials have drafted proposals to hobble China’s high-tech industries, ready should Trump sour on Xi.
Beijing is eager to make the summit a “success” in Trump’s eyes, according to Thomas, without significant concessions on AI-model distillation, industrial overcapacity or rare-earth export controls. It expects progress on Trump’s Board of Trade and Board of Investment initiatives, promises of additional Chinese purchases of U.S. goods, more dialogues and an extension of the economic truce.
The two leaders may close the summit by confirming that Trump will attend APEC in Shenzhen and Xi the G20 in Miami later in 2026.
A strong hand, and a vulnerability
Lee, a fellow on the Chinese economy, said China comes to Washington with a strong hand. Xi has reason to lower tensions, she argued, but will not concede on Beijing’s manufacturing ambitions, because those strengths explain the country’s current resilience. That resilience is itself a vulnerability to geopolitical risks, including export controls and swings in the global AI investment boom.
She is not optimistic about a grand deal this month. Signs that both sides are willing to build machinery for a deeper conversation on more balanced economic models, she said, would matter.
What technology executives will watch
Allen, a non-resident senior fellow, said technology chief executives will watch for an extension of the export control “truce” agreed at APEC last year, under which both sides agreed to postpone implementation of new and expansive export control measures for one year. He noted U.S. concern over lack of access to rare earth elements and Chinese concern over lack of access to aircraft parts and recently announced FCC regulations, with both sides blaming the other. For all the noise around the summit, the salient point may be the modest one.
The agenda is long, the expectations on both sides are carefully managed, and the deliverables Thomas describes — purchases, dialogues, an extended truce, reciprocal appearances at APEC and the G20 — are the kind of incremental steps that keep a relationship from deteriorating rather than reset it. Whether the machinery Lee mentions gets built is the question that outlasts the week.
