Trump and Xi Will Shadow Box in DC

President Trump’s summit with Communist China’s President Xi Jinping is likely to be more ceremonial than substantive from the moment Mr. Trump and first lady Melania greet him and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at Andrews Air Force Base on Wednesday.An honor guard is primed to greet China’s first couple when they alight at the brand-new White House helicopter pad, and they’ll get another full-dress greeting inside the White House the next day before Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi get down to serious business.But what are the chances of the two coming up with hard-and-fast deals? With so many pressing topics, it’s hard to know what’s at the top of the list – or whether they will have nearly enough time to sort them out before winding up their one big day at an elaborate state dinner.“Within Washington, people are getting impatient,” said a senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, Geoffrey Gertz, on a panel at George Washington University, citing “lots of potential irritants”.At the top of the list, “There will be something on AI and security risks,” he told the Sun. “They must say something, but realistically the ability of the U.S. and China to cooperate will be quite low.”That dour estimate, shared by many analysts, is hardly dimming the enthusiasm shared by both the American host and the Chinese guest for making the summit a terrific show.As the Chinese first couple arrive Thursday at the White House, “the South Drive will be lined with the Armed Forces Full Honor Cordon leading to a national flag display of U.S. and China flags,” says the White House. “The United States Army Herald Trumpets will present a fanfare on the South Portico” as the American first couple welcomes the Chinese first couple. Inside, the marine corps band will play the anthems of both countries, and the presidents will make remarks that are sure to be totally upbeat.The Chinese state press has been downright euphoric. Mr. Xi’s visit “draws broad expectations for greater strategic stability, dialogue and cooperation,” headlines the English-language Global Times, an off-shoot of the Chinese party newspaper, People’s Daily. The two presidents, in Mr. Trump’s state visit to Beijing in May, “agreed on a new vision of building a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability.”In fact, the summit in May was noteworthy for the failure of the two to come to terms on any of the pressing issues. At the American Enterprise Institute, long-time China expert Nick Eberstadt is not optimistic about Messrs. Trump and Xi doing better this time. “It looks to me like shadow-boxing,” Mr. Eberstadt tells the Sun. “It doesn’t look to me like we have a game plan.”A senior adviser and China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Scott Kennedy, writes, “The gap between their limited ambitions in terms of likely topics and outcomes on the one hand and the challenges facing the world on the other points to a growing vacuum of global leadership.”Mr. Kennedy believes, however, that the summit cannot fail simply “because expectations have been whittled down to almost nothing.” Beijing, he writes, “would likely prefer a long list of deliverables and Washington a shorter list, but neither has much ambition for path-breaking arrangements and compromises.”That doesn’t mean they won’t come up with stuff on which they have more or less already agreed. “Expect limited deals, progress, and outcomes,” says Mr. Kennedy, including “agreeing to reduce tariffs to standard levels for $30 billion of the other side’s exports; more deals on Boeing planes, aircraft components, and agricultural goods; an initial discussion of AI safety issues.”Unease persists, however, surrounding Free Taiwan, the island province that Beijing harasses with air and naval exercises. The Taiwan president, Lai Ching-te, has hinted that Taiwan should be an independent nation, but he has avoided saying so for fear of provoking attack.Mr. Xi has increased concerns by hosting the leader of the Kuomintang, the “nationalist” party whose leader, Chiang Kai-shek, led his defeated forces to Taiwan as Mao’s Red Army was taking over the mainland in 1949. The modern KMT now advocates tightening ties with the mainland.A staunch anti-Communist critic of Mr. Xi, Gordon Chang, tells the Sun, “We do not have to worry about President Trump making too many concessions.” Mr. Xi, “mistaking Trump’s goodwill as subservience, thinks he owns Trump,” says Mr. Chang. “Due to the worsening turmoil in the Communist Party, the Chinese leader cannot appear weak” but “has little room for maneuver.”

Trump and Xi Will Shadow Box in DC

Trump and Xi Will Shadow Box in DC

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