DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:
President Xi of China loves to win. Donald Trump loves a winner. This week, the U.S. president hosted his Chinese counterpart for nearly two days of pageantry and ritual. But did either side make any real gains? China is arguably the most consequential and difficult geopolitical relationship that the U.S. has. So to unpack the visit, we have with us NPR White House correspondent Emily Feng and NPR's Rob Schmitz, both of whom have reported extensively on China.
And, Emily, before we get to the question of who got what, you were in the room with President Xi as he visited the National Archives here. What was that like?
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: What has struck me about the whole state visit is how congenial the nature of these events have been. They seemed very comfortable with one another. In public remarks in the past, they have emphasized their shared history between these two countries.
And for example, when the two leaders strolled around the National Archives, they looked at original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And Trump made this quip about China having 6,000 years of history, which, by the way, is longer even than the Chinese say they have. And Xi quipped back. He commended the U.S. on its, quote, "founding spirit" from 250 years ago.
ELLIOTT: And in terms of gains, Emily, the U.S. did extend a temporary trade truce. Why is that important?
FENG: So this trade truce that we're talking about is regarding rare earths, and this was a truce that was about to expire this November. And it had stopped China from cutting the U.S. off completely from rare earth elements, which China still dominates. Now, the U.S. and China have confirmed they've extended that by two months, so it expires in January, but this is far shorter than both sides were hoping for. And per my reporting, it was because mutual distrust has scuppered the possibility of a longer extension.
Now, despite the pageantry and the photo-ops in this Chinese state visit, the actual substance of what might come out of this visit is going to be about trade. We should see announcements soon on, say, joint tariff reductions on about $30 billion of goods on both sides. Trump also mentioned that Iran came up in talks with Xi Jinping, but he didn't give details.
And Iran matters in these talks because China is a big economic supporter of Iran, and it bought up most of Iran's oil exports in the past. There are still other issues that remain in this relationship that have not been resolved by this visit, where there's still a lot of daylight between the U.S. and China. And those involve, for example, artificial intelligence and Taiwan.
ELLIOTT: Now, Rob, you covered President Trump's first term from China. What's different now?
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Yeah, I remember, a month after Trump won the election in 2016, he was sort of getting congratulatory calls from world leaders. And one of those calls that he accepted was from Tsai Ing-wen, who was the president of Taiwan at that point. And at that time, this was sort of a very big deal because it broke with decades of diplomatic protocol. It broke with the One China policy. And China experts were sort of aghast at Trump's decision to take this call.
And at the time, Trump was quick to criticize China and Xi as well for taking part in America's economic decline at that point. Fast forward a decade, and now you've got Trump throwing this lavish welcome for Xi Jinping, showering him with praise. It's a very different world that we have now. China...
ELLIOTT: It's like a complete turnaround.
SCHMITZ: China is a much stronger country now, and it holds more cards when it comes to trade. You know, another interesting thing that I noticed as I've been watching coverage this week, both from here in the U.S. and Chinese coverage, is that, you know, typically when the U.S. president meets with the leader of China, the narrative coming from the media here in the U.S. is starkly different from that of China's state-run media. But this week, the images and video coming from both the U.S. media - and yes, we're getting less of it because of the White House ban on CNN and other outlets.
But the imagery from both the American media this week and the Chinese state-run media were, in many ways, very similar. Both sides showed an American president staging VIP treatment for his Chinese counterpart. And for people watching this in China, I think this is showing them that the world's biggest superpower and economy regards their country as an equal. And that's a powerful message to the people of China. And this comes despite a quite sluggish economy in China, where many people are beginning to really question whether their government is able to continue to promise real economic growth.
ELLIOTT: You know, part of - an important part of China's economy is artificial intelligence. There was a lot of expectation that somehow the leaders would talk about AI and come to some sort of agreement. Emily, what did the president say about this?
FENG: All Trump said was that AI came up in conversations, and AI is really important to the U.S. too. It's been a huge driver of American economic growth, not just in China. But there's differences in how Chinese and American leaders have been talking about AI and particularly regulation about AI.
So take Trump. He has said multiple times, including writing just hours before meeting with Xi Jinping, that he basically wants to leave AI the way it is, meaning no more regulation. Xi Jinping, by contrast, brought up AI first thing in his opening remarks in Washington, saying it should ultimately remain under human control. And the Chinese readout of the meeting with Trump urged the two countries to cooperate despite competition between their various companies in AI and to make sure AI, quote, "serves human progress."
And just to show how important AI and technology were - have become in the bilateral relationship, at the state dinner that Xi and Trump had on Thursday night, other than officials from both governments, many of the private citizens there were CEOs of major American AI and tech companies.
ELLIOTT: Oh, it was a who's who. Yeah.
FENG: Exactly. Meta, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI - and then sitting at the table with Xi Jinping and Trump - Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, the chipmaker AMD's Lisa Su and also Apple's Tim Cook.
ELLIOTT: Rob, to better understand Xi, I understand it's useful to listen to some of the terms that he loves to use - one of them, strategic stability. What is he trying to convey?
SCHMITZ: Yes, he uses a lot of these terms. He's fond of using a handful of phrases like this to promote the idea that China is rising and that the U.S. and the rest of the West is in a state of decline. He also likes to talk about Thucydides Trap, referring to the idea that when two big powers exist, they inevitably come to blows. And of course, Xi Jinping wants to avoid military conflict with the U.S., and he yearns for what he calls strategic stability, a state where the world's two superpowers can live in a type of harmony.
In essence, you know, the U.S. is both a rival but also an economic partner with China, and decoupling is virtually impossible at this stage. So perhaps it's in both countries' interest to acknowledge this and to move forward accordingly.
FENG: For Trump, he seemed to think that stepping out of the contours of superpower competition and taking a personal touch would impress Xi and influence the relationship. For example, the two leaders spent about 90 minutes in meetings on Thursday, but then they spent almost just as much time touring the White House South Lawn, where Trump showed Xi the new helipad he just built and the new Marine One helicopter.
And I'll note, Xi Jinping largely did not match Trump with this personal touch. He did wish people a happy mid-autumn festival at the state dinner. But in his public remarks, he chose to largely speak in sweeping historical terms and cast the U.S.-China relationship in terms of this grand historical context.
ELLIOTT: That's NPR's Emily Feng along with Rob Schmitz. Thank you both for bringing us your insights on the China-U.S. relationship.
SCHMITZ: Thanks, Debbie.
FENG: Thank you.
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