Mr Trump goes to Beijing – Views from ASPI analysts

Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are meeting in Beijing on May 14 and 15 for the first time in more than six months. It’s Trump’s first visit to China since 2017. The two leaders are expected to discuss trade, rare-earths controls, nuclear weapons, Taiwan, Iran, artificial-intelligence risks, export controls on semiconductors and a host of other issues.

ASPI experts provide their analysis below on what to expect from the meeting, what is likely and unlikely and why it matters.

Taiwan – Nathan Attrill, senior analyst in ASPI’s Cyber, Technology and Security Program

Taiwan will be the most sensitive issue raised at the meeting. Beijing will push hard on arms sales and official contact with Taiwan, but Washington is unlikely to make a clear public concession. The more likely outcome is caution around timing: fewer high-profile Chinese military actions near Taiwan around the meeting, followed by continued US arms support to Taiwan. The risk is that Beijing reads any delay, softer language or transactional framing as a sign that US support for Taiwan is negotiable. That could encourage more pressure on Taiwan after the summit.

Like others, Taiwan will watch with some unease. The main worry is not that Trump will openly trade away Taiwan in one meeting but that the island becomes part of a broader bargain over trade, rare earths, Iran or market stability. Taiwanese officials will be looking closely at the language used after the summit: whether Taiwan is treated as a core security partner or as a problem to be managed between Washington and Beijing.

Above all is the risk of ambiguity – that Beijing leaves the meeting believing US support for Taiwan can be softened, delayed or negotiated if China applies enough pressure.

United States – Bethany Allen, head of China investigations

Trump will be looking to seal deals that he can market as wins to his domestic base. That means he may strike a relatively conciliatory tone in public remarks about the meeting, which could further fuel doubts among the US’s allies and partners that it is a reliable counterweight to China in the region.

This meeting will be a good opportunity to discuss the tensions that have built up over the last year and to build on last year’s trade truce. The two sides are likely to announce purchases of agricultural products and the establishment of a forum to discuss trade and investment. The war with Iran is likely to figure prominently in the public side of the visit, as the US seeks China’s support in opening the Strait of Hormuz and bringing the conflict to a close.

But don’t expect breakthroughs on Iran. US allies have largely refused to heed Trump’s calls to help open up the Strait. As a US adversary, China has even less incentive to expend its own diplomatic and military capital to help the US achieve its goals.

Indo-Pacific countries – Raji Rajagopalan, resident senior fellow

Indo-Pacific countries will watch the summit with considerable concern. They fear that Trump may make a deal with China and leave the region to fend for itself, given the US president’s penchant for deal-making and reducing the US’s military commitments. He may consider a deal with China either on the Iran issue or on trade and investment. In return, Xi may ask the US to reduce its presence in the region or its commitment to Taiwan.

Some of those nervous countries, including Australia, Japan, India and South Korea, are allies and security partners of the US. But others also hope not to see a reduced US commitment to the region.

Japan – Takahiko Kei, visiting fellow

Tokyo will be wary of discussions about Taiwan, which, along with nearby Okinawa, is crucial to Japan’s maritime security. Both also serve as Beijing’s typical narrative card during disinformation campaigns against Japan. Traditionally, the US and Japan have shared common values and concerns, but Trump’s policy is hard to predict. Officials who have met US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Tokyo this week will have impressed Japan’s China policy upon him, hoping that doing so would head off an unfavourable outcome in Beijing. The takeaways or implications from this summit will undoubtedly have no small impact on how Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi shapes her diplomatic strategy.

European Union – Bart Hogeveen, senior fellow and Europe director

For the European Union, an unlikely but severe outcome would be alignment of US and Chinese complaints against it. They could jointly put further pressure on Brussels to ease what they regard as its abusive or protectionist regulations. EU members will be somewhat satisfied if nothing much at all comes from the meeting or, better, if China agrees with the US on stabilising the situation in and around Iran.

Hybrid threats – Fitriani, senior analyst, Cyber, Technology and Security Program

The summit is likely to focus on transactional priorities such as trade, Iran and Taiwan, with little meaningful discussion about restraining the hybrid coercive tactics increasingly threatening US allies and partners. Issues including cyber intrusions into critical infrastructure, maritime grey-zone activities, information operations, strategic dependence on rare earths and the weaponisation of dual-use technologies present growing threats to the world today. But current US foreign policy is less willing to support multilateral norms or provide global public goods. Beijing, meanwhile, is likely to use the meeting to further normalise forms of coercive statecraft that sit below the threshold of open conflict.

Artificial intelligence – David Wroe, resident senior fellow

Artificial intelligence supremacy is rightly understood by many in Washington and Beijing as the ultimate strategic prize. Competition is accordingly intense. That won’t change. But following AI lab Anthropic’s announcement of its Mythos model and the cyber capabilities it would give even inexperienced hackers, Trump and Xi have incentives to find at least some baseline areas for co-operation on reducing AI risks. On top of cyber carnage, there are also growing fears about the creation of bioweapons by relative amateurs, a nightmare for national security officials everywhere.

This summit is a chance to lay down some uncontroversial basics. That could mean agreeing on minimum safety standards for frontier models, even if they’re non-binding standards. The two sides could agree to share information about threat actors and common malicious practices such as tricking frontier models into doing things they’re not supposed to. And they could set up an AI-crisis hotline.

Xi wants Trump to wind back US export controls on advanced chips for training and running AI models. Trump should refuse. Better chips are the main advantage the US has in staying ahead in the AI race.

Human rights – Tilla Hoja, analyst, Cyber, Technology and Security Program

Human rights are unlikely to be a large part of the meeting. Any downplaying of such issues in China by Trump, including the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, will be seen as a win for Xi. It will increase China’s confidence that American distraction in the Middle East and elsewhere gives China freedom to do as it pleases with its people.

Trump has signalled that he will raise with Xi the jailing of Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy Hong Kong media tycoon sentenced in February to 20 years in prison under Hong Kong’s draconian 2020 national security law. This indicates that human rights and democratic values still have a role, even if circumscribed, in US diplomacy.

Correction: An earlier version of this article wrongly characterised the India’s relationship with the United States. The article has also been updated to add a paragraph about the EU perspective of the Trump–Xi talks.