Chaos and grievances: China and the US prepare for talks in Washington

Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to the United States on September 23. The trip of this level will be the first for the Chinese leader in 11 years — the last time he visited Washington was under Barack Obama, in September 2015. The state visit will be short: Xi Jinping will not even participate in the UN General Assembly, which is taking place on the same days. At the same time, there are a lot of topics for conversation with his American counterpart Donald Trump — Taiwan, trade and relations with Russia. What the parties will achieve and why the Chinese president decided to come to Washington personally is in the Izvestia article.

One day at the White House

Xi Jinping is preparing for a visit to the United States. According to Politico, the Chinese leader will arrive on the evening of September 23, spend the day at talks at the White House on the 24th, and leave the country on September 25. Washington has confirmed the arrival itself, but the details of the program have not yet been disclosed. "President Xi is coming to visit us, sometime on September 24th. I think it was on September 24th," US President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

This will be the first state visit to the United States in 11 years for the Chinese president. Although during this time, the Chinese leader visited the country twice more: in 2017, he met with Trump in Florida, and in 2023, he came to San Francisco for the APEC summit.

Despite the high status, the current trip will be unusually short. Earlier in Washington, it was assumed that Xi Jinping could combine a meeting with Trump with a trip to the UN headquarters. However, as Politico notes, Beijing has not even sent an advance team to New York, which usually prepares such visits.

"He will not participate in the UN General Assembly and will leave on the 25th. He will have only one day of meetings at the White House — on the 24th," one of the sources told the publication.

Former US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Relations Richard Stengel called the decision not to participate in the General Assembly a missed opportunity for the Chinese leader. "China positions itself as an active supporter of the UN Charter and global governance at a time when the United States is embroiled in a war with Iran and retreating on the international front," he explained.

But for the White House, such a decision, according to the ex-official, is convenient: at the General Assembly there will not be too obvious a contrast between China, which emphasizes its support for the UN system, and Trump's "America First" foreign policy.

At the same time, questions arise about the preparation of the negotiations themselves. The South China Morning Post, citing sources, reported that less than six weeks before Xi Jinping's arrival, the parties had made only little progress in agreeing on concrete results that could be presented at the end of the summit.

Beijing is also concerned about the organization of the visit by the White House. According to SCMP, Chinese officials are once again faced with poor coordination in the Trump administration. The interlocutors of the publication claim that neither an official nor a department has yet been identified in Washington who would take over the overall preparation of the meeting.

Old disputes

The current trip will be a response to Trump's May state visit to China. At that time, the parties managed to reach an agreement on a number of economic issues, although there was no major breakthrough.

China has promised to purchase an initial batch of 200 Boeing aircraft, as well as buy at least $17 billion worth of American agricultural products. In addition, Beijing has committed itself to solving problems with the supply of rare earth metals and other critical raw materials to the United States.

But it never came to the full implementation of the agreements. After talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Washington expects Beijing to fully fulfill its obligations.

"In addition, we discussed the creation of Trade and Investment Councils as a mechanism to ensure concrete progress towards more balanced, fair and constructive economic relations between the United States and China," he said.

At the same time, Washington continued to put pressure on Chinese technology companies. In June, the Pentagon included Alibaba, Baidu, BYD, NIO, manufacturers of CXMT and YMTC chips, as well as the robotics Unitree in the list of organizations that the US military considers to be associated with the armed forces of the People's Republic of China. The companies denied the charges, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry demanded that the decision be reversed.

A separate dispute is going on around artificial intelligence. Trump has already directly linked this topic to his September meeting with his Chinese counterpart. "We talked about artificial intelligence when I was in Beijing, and we'll talk about it again," the American president said.

The parties have also accumulated a lot of disagreements here. In July, the United States accused China's Moonshot AI of using Anthropic's developments to create its own Kimi K3 model. Beijing, in turn, accuses Washington of trying to restrain the Chinese AI industry through technological restrictions and promises to respond to new measures.

Taiwan remains the most sensitive issue. China demands a complete halt to American arms sales to Taipei. But instead, Washington is discussing a new arms package for the island worth about $14 billion. He is now awaiting Trump's decision. The adoption of this package can seriously complicate the preparation of the meeting.

In addition, the talks between the two leaders may also focus on Russia. Washington has previously accused Chinese companies of supplying dual-use products to Moscow. Beijing denies these claims. This topic was already raised during the May meeting, so it may return in September.

What the experts say

The upcoming visit should not be considered in the context of a possible rapprochement between the United States and China, experts interviewed by Izvestia agree. Washington and Beijing are only trying to determine the rules that will allow them to continue competing without bringing matters to a new major crisis.

— The return visit was actually planned back in May: during a meeting in Beijing, Trump invited Xi to the White House on September 24. Therefore, we are now seeing the second act of pre-arranged diplomacy. During these four months, there has been no strategic rapprochement between the United States and China, but the parties have become convinced that it is more profitable for them to manage the conflict than to constantly raise the stakes," says political analyst Ilya Graschenkov.

The main topic of the meeting, according to him, will be the economy. Trump needs results that can be shown to the American electorate: new purchases of goods from the United States, guarantees for the supply of rare earths, and lower trade barriers. China, on the contrary, is interested in avoiding another round of tariff war and in easing American technological restrictions.

Natalia Eremina, a professor at St. Petersburg State University, also believes that a full-fledged rapprochement between the two countries should not be expected, since the United States and China remain competitors.

— China will try to agree that there really are some red lines that it is better not to cross, because it will affect the States themselves. On this rather fragile basis, we need to try to prolong the dialogue," the Izvestia interlocutor points out.

Experts admit that Russia is also likely to appear in the conversation. Grashchenkov believes that Washington may try to get Beijing to take a more cautious position on the supply of dual-use products and financial settlements to Russia, as well as involve China in discussing the Russian-Ukrainian settlement.

— It would be strange to expect Xi to agree to simply "trade Russia" for improving relations with the United States. Sino-Russian relations have independent strategic value for Beijing. The risk for Moscow is different: China will negotiate solely based on its own interests and may well make point concessions to Washington where the price for Beijing is low, the political scientist explains.

He expects that the topic of the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine will be raised at the talks, and Eremin. According to her, Moscow is trying not to be the first to respond to the provocative actions of the West, but such restraint cannot continue indefinitely. China is able to convey this position to Washington.

— Russia is not interested in the collapse of the world into a global war, we are not responding to anything until the last moment. This moment of exposure is very serious, but exposure may come to an end someday. The Chinese side understands this too. She can probably play a positive role here and show the situation the way it is developing," the expert concludes.