Why China is cautious about a Trump-XI summit

In Washington, President Trump said he was willing to meet Xi Jinping, China’s leading leader.

In Beijing, Chinese officials and experts agree that a meeting between heads of state should be preceded by any widespread restoration of relations with the United States in the midst of Trump’s aggressive approach to trade and foreign policy.

But organizing a meeting is already slow and difficult.

Senator Steve Daines, a Republican of Montana, who came to Beijing this month as Mr Trump’s informal spokesman, said one of the main goals for his journey was to lay the foundations for a presidential summit. After meeting with Chinese Vice President for economic policy, Mr Daines said in an interview that he believed that a summit would be held by the end of the year – a slower pace than many in Washington was waiting.

On the Chinese side, Communist Party officials and government councilors reported in interviews last week that they had exploded from Mr Trump’s rapid fire on invoices, Greenland, Ukraine and other issues. They have been frightened by his hostile treatment to the public of foreign leaders such as President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine. As a result, they are careful for planning a summit.

Tensions between Beijing and Washington could worsen this week, when a new set of Mr Trump’s invoices is going to enter into a potentially broad trade limit.

Chinese officials are reluctant to plan a summit until the two sides have negotiated details in advance, including an agreement between the two countries that will endure the rest of Mr Trump’s term. Trump’s administration has not yet determined what is an acceptable agreement.

“The Chinese side believes that Trump’s administration has not really understood what is the way to deal with China and make an agreement,” Wu Xinbo, a dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said on Friday.

“The Chinese side would like to wait for a more constructive and reasonable signal than the administration,” said Wu, who was part of an informal delegation of retired Chinese officials and academic advisers to the United States and US officials.

Two other Chinese experts familiar with discussions between the United States and China reported the opportunity of the two leaders to meet in New York at the time of the United Nations General Assembly in September. But it remains unclear if their governments can make much progress until then, they said that experts, who had not been authorized to comment.

In a fax answer to questions about the possible timetable of a summit, the representative’s office at the Chinese Foreign Ministry said he had “no information to be released right now”.

Mr made a video tape on Wednesday with Jamieson Greer, the United States trading representative. Mr expressed his concern about imposing two rounds of 10 % of 10 % of Chinese goods invoices so far, according to a Chinese statement after the meeting.

China has already reacted against Mr Trump’s original invoices on Chinese goods by imposing additional invoices on imports of US mineral fuel and agricultural products.

The journey of Senator Dains was only the second visit to Congress in China in more than five years. While members of Congress usually travel to groups in foreign countries, no other senator or representatives have chosen to accompany Mr Daines to Beijing.

Beijing has not rewarded the American side to promote Mr Dains. In a surprise move on March 16, China, the largest beef importer in the world, stopped almost all imports of American beef. He had previously purchased $ 1 billion a year of American beef, much of that from Mr Daines’s state.

Beijing granted five -year licenses in March 2020 in several hundred US massacres to export beef to China. This came after years of intermittent holidays on missions due to trade friction and China’s alleged concerns about the Mad Cow disease in the United States, although international animal health experts found that beef is safe. The China beef industry itself has also opposed imports for a long time.

Recent export licenses actually closed the Chinese market, with shipments falling to 54 tonnes a week after the licenses expired, from about 2,000 tonnes a week.

Beijing’s decision not to renew slaughter licenses put pressure on Mr Daines.

“The impact of this decision on US farmers can hardly be overestimated, so I raised this issue immediately with the Lifeng Vice President,” Mr Daines said, adding that he was “calling on China to reverse this decision.”

The office of the representative at the Chinese Foreign Ministry said “he did not know” the difference of slaughter permit.