US President Donald Trump will pay an official visit to China on 14-15 May to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This will be the first visit to Beijing by an American president in the last nine years.
The visit was originally scheduled for April, but Trump asked for it to be postponed due to the war on Iran.
The Beijing summit will be the second time the two leaders have met in person during Trump’s second term. The first was when they met at Busan in South Korea on 30 October last year on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit hosted by the government of South Korea.
Trump said that this meeting was “amazing”, and it was at the Busan Summit that the two leaders agreed to exchange visits in 2026. Trump has extended an invitation to Xi to pay a state visit to the United States later this year.
At the Busan meeting, the two men agreed on measures that reflected their joint political will to stabilise American-Chinese relations after a tariffs and trade war broke out between the two countries following Trump’s swearing into office in January 2025.
Xi commented, rightly, that “trade should drive bilateral ties and not be a stumbling block or a point of friction.” I guess that this position will be a shared one at the Beijing meeting this month, since the benefits of trade for the two great powers are difficult to ignore.
For example, China agreed at the Busan Summit to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans by January and to purchase 25 million tons of them annually for the next three years. In return, Trump trimmed tariffs on Chinese goods to 47 per cent. China also lifted restrictions on the exports of rare earth minerals and also promised to crack down on the illicit trade of the drug fentanyl.
In what was considered to be a significant win for China, Trump pledged to delay new measures to bar thousands of Chinese firms from receiving American technology for a year. The two presidents also agreed to pause tit-for-tat fees on shipping that had been designed to thwart dominance in shipbuilding, ocean freight, and logistics.
The Beijing meeting is expected to build on these measures and will be guided by the desire of both leaders to frame overall bilateral relations in the context of strategic competition rather than confrontation and conflict.
It is interesting to note that Trump said at Busan after his meeting with Xi that the question of Taiwan had not been discussed, showing how eager the US and China are to put aside traditional questions of geo-strategic rivalry, whether in the Indo-Pacific region or across the globe, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, barring any unexpected flare-ups in the Strait of Taiwan or the South China Sea.
It goes without saying that the war against Iran will take centre stage in Beijing. The American administration has been in contact with the Chinese government, asking it to exert “pressure” on Iran to agree to a compromise solution in order to overcome the present political and diplomatic impasse by negotiating a partial agreement through Pakistani mediation.
The hope is that this will end the war and open the Strait of Hormuz to international navigation without preconditions.
China would like the United States to lift its blockade of Iranian ports as a necessary step before the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz. In the meantime, Trump will ask the Chinese leader, using diplomatic terms, not to provide the Iranians with dual-use materials that could enhance the military capacities of the Iranian military.
For the record, the Chinese government has consistently denied reports that it has been doing so.
By the same token, the Chinese president will ask Trump not to provide Taiwan with arms. Last December, the American administration approved an arms package worth $11.1 billion to Taiwan, and it is withholding a notification to Congress of another arms sale that could exceed $14 billion out of fears that it could negatively impact the high-stakes summit in the Chinese capital.
The Beijing summit is taking place at a time when the American administration is undertaking a war of choice against a strategic partner of China and one with which the country is linked in a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement for the next 20 years. Iran is also a major source of oil to China.
As a result, it is expected that Xi will stress the need to accommodate basic Iranian demands in his talks with Trump, including the lifting of the blockade on Iranian ports, the unfreezing of Iranian fund, the lifting of sanctions on Iran, and the degree of uranium enrichment and the duration of a potential freeze, in order to end the war between the US and Israel and Iran.
The ball will be in the American court, taking into account the fact that the United States and China do not see eye to eye on ending an Iranian nuclear programme for military purposes.
While the war against Iran will be one of the most important topics discussed at the Beijing summit, I believe the question of artificial intelligence (AI) will also be important, at least on the issue of how the two governments could work together to regulate its use and contain its risks.
The American-Chinese summit in Beijing will be closely watched in major capitals around the world, especially in the Indo-Pacific, the Asia-Pacific, the Gulf, and Europe, for its results will have a direct impact on the world economy and international security.
In its editorial on 10 May, the UK Financial Times wrote that “Trump’s MAGA may still believe the president is playing smart four-dimensional chess. But in reality his war has only strengthened China’s position on the board.”
I could not agree more.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 14 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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