President Donald Trump will travel to Beijing this week to meet with President Xi Jinping, marking the first visit to China by a United States president in almost a decade and the first in-person meeting between the two leaders since October.
The Leaders’ Summit, which was originally planned for late March or early April, was postponed due to the war in Iran and its rescheduling was announced over the weekend. The face-to-face meeting could set the U.S. and China on a path to repairing trade relations that have come under intense strain over the past year—or, it could solidify the competing ambitions of two world superpowers.
“This will be the first visit to China by a U.S. president in almost nine years. President Xi will have in-depth exchanges of views with President Trump on major issues concerning China-U.S. relations and world peace and development,” China Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in a press conference Monday morning.
“Heads-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable role in providing strategic guidance for China-U.S. relations. China stands ready to work with the U.S. to expand cooperation and manage differences in the spirit of equality, respect and mutual benefit, and provide more stability and certainty for a transforming and volatile world,” he added.
With the talks slated for Thursday and Friday, the heads of state are expected to explore points of contention both recent and longstanding. The ongoing Middle East conflict, China’s relationship with Taiwan and, of course, tariffs are on the docket.
According to reporting from the New York Times, the Trump administration is focused on spurring both trade and investment and prioritizing what officials and analysts have characterized as the “Five B’s”: China’s purchases of Boeing planes, American beef and soybeans, and the establishment of a board of investment and a board of trade. Meanwhile, the outlet wrote that Chinese officials are focused on “Three T’s”: tariffs, technology and Taiwan.
Trump will travel with executives from American conglomerates like Boeing, Qualcomm and Citigroup, who plan to meet with Chinese firms.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in South Korea on Wednesday with the goal of tackling a final round of negotiations before the meeting between Trump and Xi.
“Economic security is national security, and I look forward to a productive series of engagements as we work to advance President Trump’s America First Economic Agenda,” Bessent wrote on X in a post confirming the visit.
Bessent has recently been vocal about China’s economic role in the war and has urged the country’s government to aid in the U.S. effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism, and China has been buying 90 percent of their energy, so they are funding the largest state sponsor of terrorism,” Bessent told Fox News last week. “I would urge the Chinese to join us in supporting this international operation,” he told the outlet.
While Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs are no more, China still faces Section 301 duties on many of its exports to the U.S.—a holdover of the American president’s first term. It is also the nucleus of two current Section 301 investigations into dozens of U.S. trade partners announced by the U.S. Trade Representative in March related to industrial excess capacity and a failure to address imports made with forced labor.
China’s growing production capacity—which has expanded beyond its borders to encompass owned and operated factories across the globe—has been the subject of discussion by trade experts and economists warning of “China Shock 2.0.” The first so-called “China Shock” took place between 2000 and 2010, with China’s 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization spurring a surge of exports of low-cost products to Western markets.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which monitors and reports to Congress on the national security risks inherent to the relationship, wrote about the China Shock 2.0 phenomenon late last year. “China’s economic model continues to generate a major imbalance between weak domestic demand and excess supply of manufactured goods,” the commission wrote in a report, noting that the country “uses its excess capacity to manufacture goods… at a scale it cannot consume on its own.”
“Rather than attempt to rebalance its economy, China is exporting its economic distortions in the form of low-priced goods, thereby threatening the world with a second ‘Shock,’” it added. “This China Shock 2.0 is already upending manufacturing sectors in both developing and developed countries, up and down the value chain, as China’s flood of exports is no longer limited to low-value-added goods like furniture and clothing.”
During a scheduled press conference on Friday, China Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian attempted to dispel fears of a second China Shock, speaking to the country’s essential role in the global supply chain.
“From the world’s factory to the world’s market and innovation powerhouse, China’s development is achieved through strong performance driven by innovation and brings tangible cooperation opportunities and space to the world. High-quality Chinese products represented by the ‘old three’ of textiles, furniture and home appliances have stabilized the global industrial and supply chain, lowered the living cost of global consumers and eased the inflationary pressure worldwide,” he said.
“Openness and cooperation brings about progress and win-win result. China’s development has never been a ‘threat’ to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries. What really creates ‘shocks’ to the world has never been the innovation of Chinese companies and efficiency of Chinese industrial capacity, but protectionist moves of setting up barriers, decoupling and severing industrial and supply chains,” he added.
