What issues will dominate the Trump-Xi summit, and who has the upper hand?
analysis East Asia
What issues will dominate Trump-Xi summit, and who has the upper hand?
Analysts say expectations for any meaningful reset in Sino-US ties remain tempered - and that the real test will be whether the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US counterpart Donald Trump in Beijing produces durable mechanisms.
BEIJING: The Iran war will dominate the agenda for the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and United States counterpart Donald Trump in Beijing this week, in an early test of how far Washington and Beijing can cooperate despite deepening strategic rivalry, say analysts.
Yet even as the crisis that has disrupted global energy security injects urgency into the meeting, Taiwan will also feature prominently in the talks as it remains the enduring fault line in the Sino-US relationship, observers say.
They add that the issues could even converge at the negotiating table as both sides test whether progress on one front could yield leverage on the other, although the likelihood of formal trade-offs is limited.
But even as these and other thorny issues - such as technology restrictions and trade frictions - are set to come up, analysts say expectations for any meaningful reset in Sino-US ties remain tempered.
“The optics will be dramatic … (but) there does not appear to be much that either the US or PRC (People’s Republic of China) are able and willing to deliver - and then stick to those positions,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and non-resident scholar at Carnegie China.
THE WEIGHT OF WAR
Beijing confirmed on Monday (May 11) that Trump would visit China from May 13 to 15 at Xi’s invitation, marking his first state visit to the country since 2017.
US officials have said he is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday night, with summit talks slated for Thursday and Friday.
Analysts said the war in the Middle East is set to carry significant weight at the summit.
Triggered by US and Israeli attacks on Iran, the conflict that’s now in its third month has disrupted shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime artery that carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies.
“It is no longer just a Middle East issue but is spilling over into global energy security, maritime routes and US-China strategic competition,” Sun Chenghao, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, told CNA.
Pointing to China’s heavier reliance on Middle Eastern energy supplies, Sun added that the US is seeking to leverage this to exert diplomatic pressure on Beijing. The Trump administration has publicly pressed China to use its influence with Tehran to help reopen the waterway and stabilise energy flows.
Roughly 40 to 50 per cent of China’s oil imports are estimated to transit the Strait of Hormuz, compared with about 7 per cent of US crude oil and condensate imports in 2024, according to energy-market estimates and US Energy Information Administration data.
Both sides share an interest in preventing a prolonged closure of the strait or a broader regional escalation that could destabilise global markets, Sun said.
“The limitation, however, is that their fundamental positions differ: the US emphasises ‘maximum pressure’ and deterrence, while China stresses political solutions and opposes unilateral sanctions,” he said.
The Iran crisis also exposes sharply different priorities for Washington and Beijing heading into the summit, analysts said.
Beijing is seeking to avoid disruption to energy flows while maintaining ties with Tehran, said Li Yaqi, a research assistant specialising in international relations at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore, told CNA.
Washington, by contrast, is looking for visible movement from Beijing that could help contain the conflict and ease pressure on global energy markets - giving Trump a deliverable he can frame as a test of crisis management, Li said.
“For Trump, Iran is the deliverable … for Beijing, Iran is a complication,” Li told CNA.
TUSSLING OVER TAIWAN
Analysts also expect Taiwan to loom large, with Beijing having already signalled ahead of the meeting that the issue remains central to its dealings with Washington.
China regards Taiwan as its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control.
In an Apr 30 phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said the Taiwan question concerns China’s core interests and is the “biggest risk” in China-US relations, according to the Chinese readout.
While the US does not formally recognise Taiwan diplomatically, it is the island’s key international backer and is bound under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taipei with the means to defend itself.
Rubio said on May 5 that he was “sure Taiwan will be a topic of conversation” at the summit, adding that both Washington and Beijing understood each other’s positions and did not want destabilising events in the Indo-Pacific.
Analysts said Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy has fuelled speculation that Taiwan could become entangled in broader bargaining between Washington and Beijing over Iran or other areas of cooperation, although any explicit trade-off remains unlikely.
Tsinghua University’s Sun said the risk of Taiwan and Iran becoming linked in summit negotiations “objectively exists”, but suggested this was more likely to emerge through subtle bargaining and diplomatic signalling rather than any formal deal.
“It would be very difficult for the US to genuinely ‘trade away’ Taiwan for limited cooperation on Iran,” Sun said, noting that Taiwan remains a core sensitivity for Beijing while longstanding US legal, political and security commitments constrain Washington’s room for manoeuvre.
While Trump could still attempt to do so, Chong from NUS said any such move would likely run into resistance from Congress and the