WASHINGTON, September 20 — The Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, working with the online magazine ChinaFile, published an article on September 18 titled “What to Watch at the Xi-Trump Summit,” previewing a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping set for the following week in Washington. The piece examines the issues likely to dominate the encounter — trade and technology, Taiwan, and regional security — and looks past the summit itself to the factors that will shape U.S.-China relations after Xi leaves Washington.
Its contributing experts are Neil Thomas, Lizzi C. Lee, Craig Allen, Paul Triolo, Helen Toner, Lyle Morris, and Jing Qian.
Media outlets seeking interviews with them ahead of the summit were directed to a CCA press address.
Beijing’s calculus
Thomas, a Senior Fellow on Chinese Politics at CCA, 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. He also noted that many Chinese strategists view the U.S. president as a relatively benign figure in Washington when it comes to dealing with Beijing. Word around the U.S. capital, Thomas wrote, is that more hawkish officials have drafted several proposals to hobble China’s high-tech industries, ready to go if Trump sours on Xi.
Beijing is therefore eager to make the summit a success in Trump’s eyes without making significant concessions on issues such as AI-model distillation, industrial overcapacity, or rare-earth export controls, he wrote. Observers should expect 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, according to Thomas — though he cautioned that any agreed duration would be moot if Trump decides to pivot on China.
If all goes well, the two leaders may end the summit by confirming that Trump will attend APEC in Shenzhen and Xi the G20 in Miami later in 2026. If things do not go well, he added, that will be known much sooner.
A strong hand, and a hidden vulnerability
Lizzi C. Lee, a Fellow on Chinese Economy at CCA, wrote that China comes to Washington with a strong hand. Xi has good reason to lower tensions with the United States, in her account, but will not make concessions on Beijing’s manufacturing ambitions precisely because those strengths explain the country’s current resilience.
That resilience, she argued, may itself be a deeper source of vulnerability. A model supported by domestic tech and manufacturing strength and external tech demand is unusually exposed to geopolitical risks, including export controls and swings in the global AI investment boom.
Lee said she is not optimistic about a grand deal this month. Signs that both sides are willing to build the machinery for a deeper conversation on healthier, more balanced economic models would matter, she wrote, but leadership-level intent still has to translate into bureaucratic incentives on both sides — something no single summit can accomplish in one fell swoop.
What industry is watching
Craig Allen, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at CCA, wrote that CEOs in technology industries will be interested to see whether there is an extension of the export control truce agreed to at APEC last year, under whose terms both sides agreed to postpone implementation of new and expansive export control measures for one year. To date, both governments have myriad complaints about the other, Allen wrote.
The United States is concerned about lack of access to rare earth elements, while the Chinese are concerned about lack of access to aircraft parts and recently announced FCC regulations. Both sides blame the other for the situation.
What to watch next is whether the summit produces the truce extension and the trade and investment dialogues Thomas described — and whether the two presidents close the meeting by confirming their attendance at APEC in Shenzhen and the G20 in Miami later in 2026. If the talks falter, Thomas wrote, that outcome will be apparent well before then.
