Why the Trump and Xi summit will struggle to live up to its grand pageantry

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The lavish fanfare President Donald Trump is laying on for China’s leader Xi Jinping implies that a grand global moment is at hand.

In an unusual move, Trump traveled to a blustery Joint Base Andrews to greet Xi at the foot of the steps to his plane when he arrived Wednesday for a two-night stay. The leaders chatted, together with their wives, before strolling down a red carpet side by side. There was one blip in the choreography, however, when a jet performing a flyover split the sky with a thunderous roar during the national anthem, causing Trump to flinch and grimace.

Still, the imagery suggests two great leaders of the world’s most powerful nations meeting to chart the planet’s destiny. The timing could not be more propitious as the US and China push across a new technological frontier amid warnings from industry chiefs that artificial intelligence may soon race out of control.

But pageantry can deceive. Xi’s state visit is no equivalent of the summits between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that set the Cold War on course for a soft landing.

For one thing, it is expected to end without an agreement to protect humanity that would parallel 1980s nuclear weapons cuts. Forty years on, such moves might include curbs on AI development or the US and China offering mutual visibility into their tech industries to build trust and safety.

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There’s still a chance the summit could surprise — though to do so it would have to confound China’s traditional diplomatic codes, which require intricate pre-meeting diplomacy to line up deliverables. In reality, then, a good outcome would be limited to an extension of the bilateral trade truce announced Wednesday evening; new efforts to forge stability between Washington and Beijing; and minor initiatives on AI, fentanyl flows, trade and avoiding military clashes.

But why are expectations so low, especially when the rest of the world is looking on as the US and China vie for the lead in an artificial intelligence arms race?

The AI issue is especially emblematic of the gulf between the rivals. Each thinks it can prevail, and both understand the stakes for their superpower duel: “Whoever wins AI, wins,” as Trump put it. Both are resisting any meaningful constraints in a sector that is vital to propping up economic growth. Many analysts believe China is trailing in the AI race, and wouldn’t sign up to any mutual slowing of the industry. It typically sees any move to limit its technological rise as part of a Western strategy to deprive it of its rightful global power.

A personality mismatch between the improvisational Trump and the deliberate Xi also augurs against spontaneous decision-making. The US and Chinese political systems are so different — and so increasingly weighted to counter the other — that little common ground exists.

And each side wants to avoid blowups but lacks the leverage to force concessions.

Trump’s plunging poll numbers amid the Iran war risk fraying his global clout. He discovered last year that Chinese threats to cut exports of rare earth minerals to the US could thwart his trade offensive. And while Xi has no worries about angry voters in his totalitarian homeland, and ruthlessly protects his domestic power, he’s facing a property crisis and economic issues back home.

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To be fair to Trump, most global summits under-deliver. And meetings between US and Chinese leaders unfold amid unflattering comparisons to epochal 1970s meetings between President Richard Nixon and China’s Mao Zedong.

Still, the president often gives the impression that he’s more interesting in the spectacle of global leader summits than their substance — one reason the Xi meetings this week may yield few concrete outcomes. His high-profile meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term, and last year’s Alaska encounter with President Vladimir Putin, produced little apart from photos of Trump with strongmen he appears to admire.

He’s been relishing the prospect of Xi’s visit for months, and will want to at least match the red-carpet symbolism that he took as a sign of great personal respect when he traveled to Beijing in May.

Trump is far from the first president to believe that their intimate personal connections with foreign leaders are decisive in global affairs. During a crisis, such ties could be important.

Lyle Goldstein, senior fellow and director of the Asia Program at the think tank Defense Priorities, said the meetings were a “good thing” and that personal diplomacy between Xi and Trump had helped stabilize the relationship and reduced military tensions, including over Taiwan.

Still, Trump has taken faith in his own indispensability to new levels. He frequently boasted, for instance, about his “great relationship” with Xi at 2024 campaign rallies in a way that seemed distant from voters’ top concerns. In Beijing, he gushed again about the connection. “It’s an honor to be your friend,” Trump told his host. “There are those that say this is the biggest summit ever.”

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Trump’s determination to protect what he sees as his personal bonds with leaders sometimes leads him to make excuses on their behalf. In July, for instance, he told reporters that “we do things to them too; it’s not a one-way street” when asked about allegations of Chinese election meddling in 2020. This month, the president also played down claims that Beijing gave Iran satellite imagery of a base in Jordan before an attack on US troops. China denied the report from the Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed US officials.

The Chinese leader rarely reciprocates with personal warmth toward Trump, showing every sign of playing a long diplomatic game that will endure long after the 47th president has left office. Former officials have said that Xi is more willing to engage in unscripted conversations in private than his dour predecessor Hu Jintao. But he’s still inhibited by Chinese Communist Party protocols and cautious diplomatic customs. He’s also noticeably avoided the ostentatious flattery that other leaders employ to try to get Trump onside.

Some Republicans have been withering about Trump’s approach. In extraordinary comments on Tuesday, Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, blasted the meeting. “Our commander in chief should keep in mind that his guest is a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America,” Wicker said.

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The Xi-Trump summit was lent extra relevance by recent warnings by AI developers and leaders that their products could soon slip out of control and threaten humanity.

But on Tuesday, Trump rebranded AI as “super intelligence” and told the United Nations General Assembly that he “totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control” the technology. The fast-expanding use of AI in military applications, meanwhile, adds another layer of complexity, because any move by either Beijing or Washington to limit the technology could give the rival superpower a potential battlefield edge.

The president’s opposition to any regulation, at home or abroad, has already closed off the potential of a major US-China deal on the issue. While China balks at outside control, it has shown more openness to building institutional safeguards and a global consensus on how to deal with AI’s development, although its willingness to go beyond rhetoric is unclear.

AI is exceedingly widely adopted in China. And its closed political society means there has been little of the debate and backlash about the technology that has erupted during the US midterm election campaign.

On Wednesday, Beijing’s permanent representative to the United Nations Fu Cong lashed out in a UN Security Council meeting with AI chiefs at “certain major countries” — code for the US — that he accused of creating a “petty us versus them clique” and of forcing other countries to use their technology over China’s.

Still, there’s some recognition on both sides of the global concern about AI. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC Monday that ahead of the summit, the US and China were discussing opening a line of communication regarding AI incidents to help determine “what the leading AI dangers are.”

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美国总统唐纳德·特朗普为中国领导人习近平举行的盛大欢迎仪式表明，一个重要的全球时刻即将到来。

出人意料的是，特朗普亲自前往狂风呼啸的安德鲁斯联合基地，在习近平主席周三抵达时，在飞机舷梯下迎接他。习近平主席将在此停留两晚。两位领导人及其夫人进行了交谈，随后并肩走过红毯。然而，仪式中出现了一个小插曲：一架进行飞行表演的喷气式飞机在奏国歌时发出震耳欲聋的轰鸣声，撕裂了天空，令特朗普吓了一跳，面露痛苦之色。

尽管如此，这幅画面仍然展现了世界两大强国的领导人会面，共同规划地球的未来。此时此刻，正值美中两国携手迈向科技新领域之际，而业界领袖们也警告称，人工智能可能很快就会失控，此时的会面可谓恰逢其时。

但盛大的场面可能会具有欺骗性。习近平的国事访问与美国总统罗纳德·里根和苏联领导人米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫之间的峰会截然不同，后者为冷战的软着陆奠定了基础。

首先，预计此次谈判最终不会达成一项类似上世纪80年代核武器削减协议那样旨在保护人类的协议。四十年后，此类举措可能包括限制人工智能发展，或者美中两国相互开放各自科技产业的信息，以建立信任和安全感。

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峰会仍有可能带来惊喜——尽管这需要打破中国传统的外交惯例，因为这些惯例要求会前进行复杂的外交斡旋以达成共识。因此，实际上，一个好的结果可能仅限于延长周三晚间宣布的双边贸易休战期；为促进华盛顿和北京之间的稳定做出新的努力；以及在人工智能、芬太尼流通、贸易和避免军事冲突等方面取得一些小的进展。

但为什么人们的期望值如此之低，尤其是在世界其他国家都在关注美国和中国在人工智能军备竞赛中争夺领先地位的时候？

人工智能问题尤其体现了美中两国之间的巨大鸿沟。双方都认为自己能够胜出，并且都明白这场超级大国之争的利害关系：“谁赢了人工智能，谁就赢了，”正如特朗普所说。双方都在抵制在这个对经济增长至关重要的领域施加任何实质性的限制。许多分析人士认为，中国在人工智能竞赛中落后于其他国家，并且不会同意任何一方放慢该行业的发展速度。中国通常将任何限制其技术崛起的举措视为西方旨在剥夺其应有全球影响力的战略的一部分。

特朗普的即兴发挥和习近平的深思熟虑之间的性格差异，也预示着难以做出快速的决策。美中两国的政治体制截然不同，而且日益倾向于相互制衡，因此几乎没有共同点。

双方都想避免冲突升级，但又缺乏迫使对方做出让步的筹码。

在伊朗战争的背景下，特朗普的支持率暴跌，这可能削弱他的全球影响力。他去年发现，中国威胁削减对美稀土出口可能会挫败他的贸易攻势。虽然习近平并不担心国内选民的愤怒，并毫不留情地维护其国内权力，但他在国内却面临着房地产危机和经济问题。

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平心而论，大多数全球峰会都令人失望。而且，美中领导人会晤常常被拿来与上世纪70年代尼克松总统和毛泽东领导人那次具有划时代意义的会晤进行比较，这种比较并不光彩。

然而，总统常常给人一种印象，他似乎更热衷于全球领导人峰会的盛况而非实质内容——这也是本周与习近平会晤可能鲜有实质性成果的原因之一。他在第一任期内与朝鲜领导人金正恩的高调会晤，以及去年在阿拉斯加与普京总统的会面，除了与他似乎很欣赏的强人合影外，几乎没有其他成果。

几个月来，他一直盼望着习近平的来访，并且至少希望能够像他5月份访问北京时那样，铺上红毯，以示对习近平的极大尊重。

特朗普并非第一个认为与外国领导人的密切私人关系对全球事务具有决定性作用的总统。在危机时期，这种关系可能至关重要。

智库“国防优先”的高级研究员兼亚洲项目主任莱尔·戈德斯坦表示，这些会晤是“一件好事”，习近平和特朗普之间的个人外交有助于稳定两国关系，并降低军事紧张局势，包括台湾问题。

然而，特朗普对自己不可或缺的自信却达到了新的高度。例如，在2024年的竞选集会上，他经常吹嘘自己与习近平的“良好关系”，但这似乎与选民最关心的问题毫不相干。在北京，他又一次热情洋溢地谈起了这段关系。“能成为您的朋友是我的荣幸，”特朗普对东道主说，“有人说这是有史以来规模最大的峰会。”

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特朗普一心维护他眼中与各国领导人的私人关系，有时甚至会为他们开脱。例如，今年7月，当被问及中国干预2020年美国大选的指控时，他告诉记者：“我们也对他们做了些事；这不是单方面的付出。” 本月，这位总统还淡化了有关北京在伊朗袭击美军前向其提供约旦境内一处军事基地卫星图像的说法。中国否认了《华尔街日报》的报道，该报道援引了未具名的美国官员的话。

中国领导人很少对特朗普表现出个人热情，种种迹象表明，他正在打一场持久的外交战，即便这位第47任国家主席卸任后，这场战局仍将持续。一些前官员表示，习近平比他那严肃的前任胡锦涛更愿意在私下进行非正式的谈话。但他仍然受到中国共产党规章制度和谨慎外交惯例的约束。此外，他明显避免了其他领导人为了拉拢特朗普而惯用的那种铺张奉承。

一些共和党人对特朗普的做法颇有微词。周二，参议院军事委员会主席罗杰·威克发表了措辞激烈的评论，猛烈抨击了这次会晤。威克说：“我们的三军统帅应该记住，他的客人是一位残暴的、未经选举产生的、专制的独裁者，他企图统治邻国，而且他庞大的军事武库正瞄准着美利坚合众国。”

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最近人工智能开发者和领导人发出警告，称他们的产品可能很快就会失控并威胁人类，这使得习近平与特朗普的峰会更具现实意义。

但周二，特朗普将人工智能重新定义为“超级智能”，并在联合国大会上表示，他“完全反对任何试图构建全球主义阴谋来控制”这项技术的企图。与此同时，人工智能在军事领域的快速发展又增加了问题的复杂性，因为北京或华盛顿任何限制这项技术的举动都可能使竞争对手在战场上获得潜在优势。

总统反对在国内或国外采取任何监管措施，这已经彻底断送了美中就此问题达成重大协议的可能性。尽管中国不愿接受外部控制，但它在构建制度保障和就如何应对人工智能发展达成全球共识方面表现出更大的开放态度，尽管其是否愿意超越口头承诺尚不明朗。

人工智能在中国的应用极其广泛。而其相对封闭的政治社会意味着，在中国很少出现像美国中期选举期间那样，围绕这项技术爆发的辩论和强烈反对。

周三，北京常驻联合国代表傅聪在联合国安理会与人工智能领域负责人举行的会议上猛烈抨击了“某些大国”（暗指美国），指责它们制造了“狭隘的‘我们与他们’的小圈子”，并强迫其他国家使用自己的技术而不是中国的技术。

尽管如此，双方都意识到了人工智能在全球范围内引发的担忧。美国财政部长斯科特·贝森特周一告诉CNBC，在峰会召开前，美中两国正在讨论就人工智能事件建立沟通渠道，以帮助确定“人工智能的主要危险是什么”。