U.S. President Donald Trump is meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week. This highly anticipated summit—rescheduled from March amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran—is the first visit between U.S. and Chinese leaders since 2017, during Trump’s first term. Even as the top actors remain the same, the global environment has changed dramatically. How the two leaders handle the Middle East, trade, technology, Taiwan, and other critical issues will be watched closely around the world. China Focus asked experts at UC San Diego to identify the issue they would most want Trump and Xi to address directly, explain why it matters now, and assess how likely the meeting is to produce meaningful movement on it.
Caroline Freund
Dean, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego
With Trump and Xi meeting against the backdrop of 18 months of tariff-and-export-control whiplash, I’d most want a truce on trade interventionism paired with a commitment to keep meeting. Concretely: the U.S. agrees to no new tariffs on China if China agrees not to weaponize export controls on critical minerals. A no-regrets deliverable would be expanding the bilateral flight agreement between the two countries—a small, achievable win that signals broader intent.
This matters now because importers and exporters on both sides need predictability to plan, invest, and hire. Equally important are the people-to-people ties that have frayed: Chinese students sitting next to American students, U.S. tourists and business leaders seeing China for themselves. These exchanges set the tone for the next generation of the relationship, and they cannot be rebuilt quickly once lost.
I’m less enthusiastic about a managed trade agreement, which has proponents in Washington. Quantity promises often go unmet—the Phase One deal’s purchase targets are a cautionary example—and shortfalls poison the relationship further. Managed trade also overrides the price signals that allocate resources efficiently and risks unsettling allies already wary of U.S. unpredictability.
Likelihood of meaningful movement? Modest. Expanded flights and a vague tariff pause are plausible; a durable framework is harder, given domestic political pressures on both sides. But even a modest, credible truce plus a calendar for follow-up meetings would be a real improvement over the current trajectory, and worth pursuing on its own terms.
Barry Naughton
Professor and So Kwan Lok Chair of Chinese International Affairs, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego
In an ideal world, Trump and Xi would be discussing a mutually acceptable program of derisking, but this will not happen. The Trump-Xi summit is taking place under the tacit agreement that neither side can change the other’s domestic system or economic model. This is inevitable under current conditions, but also deeply unsatisfying. China today focuses government resources on technological upgrading and competition, while increasingly vetting economic interactions with the outside world. Together, these lead to severe domestic imbalances and enormous Chinese trade surpluses. These issues cannot be discussed, because China does not accept this characterization of its economic policy.
Indeed, China denies it has a policy of “derisking,” and claims to support an open global trade system. Meanwhile, the US scrambles to coordinate different elements of derisking and economic nationalism. This means the two sides cannot realistically discuss a mutually acceptable program of derisking, in which each accepts that the other needs to reduce dependencies while allowing other kinds of trade to proceed for mutual advantage. As a result of this inability, a messy program of mutual derisking is unfolding, in which each act of derisking creates new suspicions on the other side.
Victor Shih
Director, 21st Century China Center; Professor and Ho Miu Lam Chair in China and Pacific Relations, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego
It would have been nice to have a systematic discussion on how China can change policies to gradually rebalance global trade, which would be reciprocated by U.S. tariff reductions in concert with some allies, such as Mexico. However, I am afraid that the most urgent issue for this White House will be the crisis in the Middle East. The administration would desperately want China to help stop the conflict there.
The question is what China will ask in return. I think it is now widely expected that the U.S. would agree to a formal statement opposing Taiwan independence. But in addition to this, what else will China ask for? I am concerned that all medium-term issues will be sidelined or only discussed in passing given the urgency of the Middle East for the White House.
Susan Shirk
Research Professor; Director Emeritus, 21st Century China Center
The leaders’ May summit could have been the first step in a year-long process of inducing China to reduce its security threats to its Asian neighbors. In recent years, the PRC has intensified military pressure against its regional neighbors, particularly Japan, and against Taiwan. Despite Beijing’s foreign policy rhetoric that aims to reassure other countries about its benign intentions, its aggressive military exercises and operations in its own neighborhood have made China appear more threatening to Americans as well as Asians.
But I am not optimistic about achieving much on the security front because the U.S. side has failed to make adequate preparations for the summit. The Trump administration has decimated the professional staff of the State Department and National Security Council, and those who have survived don’t dare take the initiative because all foreign policy is being made in a highly centralized manner by President Trump. The Chinese Foreign Ministry is very frustrated by the lack of what in the past would have been normal diplomatic practice of the two sides meeting face to face beforehand to negotiate the agenda and deliverables. The only pre-summit negotiations have been done by Cabinet- and Politburo-level officials responsible for trade and economics. From my perspective as a former State Department official who negotiated the summits between Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton in 1997–98, it looks like diplomatic malpractice.
Hao Wang
Professor, Center for American Studies, Fudan University; Associate Director, Fudan-UC Center on Contemporary China
If I had to choose one issue for Trump and Xi to address directly, I would choose Taiwan and crisis management. Trade, tariffs, technology, and regional issues like Iran all matter, of course. But Taiwan is the one issue where strategic competition could most quickly become a military crisis. The reason it matters now is that U.S.-China relations have become more crowded and more dangerous. The economic relationship is still tense, and technology competition has made both sides more suspicious of each other, especially over semiconductors, AI, export controls, and supply chains. At the same time, crises in places like the Middle East remind us that regional conflicts can easily spill into great-power politics. In that environment, Taiwan becomes even more sensitive. It is not only a sovereignty issue for Beijing or a security issue for Washington. It is also tied to alliance credibility, military deterrence, and the stability of the global economy.
I would not expect, or even ask for, a grand bargain on Taiwan. That is simply not realistic. What would matter more is a serious conversation about guardrails: military-to-military communication, crisis hotlines, rules for dangerous encounters, and clearer signals about what each side will and will not do. The chances for meaningful movement are limited, but not zero. Trump and Xi might agree on some stabilizing language or practical crisis-management steps. A real breakthrough is unlikely. But even modest progress would matter, because the goal is not to solve Taiwan. It is to reduce the risk of miscalculation.
