Washington (AP) – China, enemy. China, friends? These days, perhaps only a few of both.
From relaxing export controls to reportedly blocking Taiwan’s president’s plan to travel to the US, the president said. Donald Trump Frowning in Washington may offer concessions that could hurt our interests in his quest to meet Chinese leaders and reach a deal.
There are no solid plans Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, there is a widespread belief that men will have to meet in person, perhaps in the fall, in order for the two governments to enter into trade deals, and some are worried that XI is taking advantage of Trump’s desire for more appeal.
“The summit discrepancies are real. There is a clear gap between Trump’s enthusiasm for meeting XI and Beijing’s reluctance to be involved,” said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank foundation.
Singleton said there are concerns that Trump could potentially return to export control or investment curbs to retain potential customers at the summit.
Since Washington established ties with communist-led Beijing in 1979, China-US relations have frequently sparked pinball. Tiananmen Squareafter the incident in 2001, US spying agencies were involved, during the COVID pandemic, and now. Both countries struggle to understand each other, and sometimes it hinders deeper partnerships.
And this time there’s a wildcard.
Conflicts often come with potential US and Chinese leadership meetings
Efforts by the US president to meet the head of the authoritarian Chinese government often met with partisan protests – that happened during the former president Joe Biden hosted XI in California in 2023. But Trump’s case is unique, in part because he is willing to trade traditional political restraints, and because his own party has grown Hawkish towards China over national security.
“It seems everything is open to negotiations with President Trump, and there are very few red lines if any,” said Gabriel Wilde, managing director of global consultant Teno. “The Hawks are worried that once Trump enters a room with XI, they will agree to an extraordinary concession, especially if they believe that a big, beautiful deal is within reach.”
While most Republican lawmakers have not publicly expressed their concerns, Democrats have spoken out against it. “President Trump is handing out the farms to Xi to save his face with a meaningless trade deal with Beijing that economically hurts American families and to reach a nonsensical trade deal,” said Senator Gregory Meeks, a top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Kush Desai said the Trump administration is “not shaking — and never shaking us in protecting our national and economic security to put America first.”
“The administration continues to have productive conversations with China to address years of unfair trade practices,” Desai said, adding that cutting-edge technology and many tariff export controls remain.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent told CNBC after the latest trade negotiations with the Chinese in July that the team is “very cautious about separating trade and national security.” And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who appeared on Fox News Radio, said the US is “as committed as ever in places like Taiwan,” but also spoke about the strategic need to stabilize trade ties with China.
“In the end, we have two big, large economies in the world,” Rubio said. “I think the full trade dispute between the US and China will benefit from it in some respects, but the world will be hurt by it.”
I’m worried about Taiwan
Taiwan Jason Huss, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former Taiwanese lawmaker, is concerned that the autonomous island could become “tradeable” when Trump seeks to do business with Beijing. “Our concern is that any of the trade transactions will lead to concessions to political support for Taiwan,” HSU said last month, citing the incident at the White House. Reportedly blocked the request Taiwan’s President Lai Qingte to pass through the United States.
The US maintains informal ties with Taiwan and has always allowed such transport in the past. Experts are worried that the Trump administration has set a bad precedent, and Democrats seized it to criticize Trump.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorti, a top Democrat on China’s House Selection Committee, called the move “both a sharp break from precedent and another example of the Trump administration to China in the hopes of reaching a trade deal.” He said policy decisions “send dangerous signals” that Taiwan’s democracy is negotiable.
Hsu said Taiwan is afraid that Trump will be forced or forced to support one China’s principles, as Beijing supports Beijing’s sovereignty claims over the island. There are also concerns that Trump may utter something in favour of “unification.” It was a request raised by Beijing in the Biden administration, although it failed to get a positive response.
Now persuading Trump to think of the island as “an economic partner, not something he can trade when negotiating with China,” he said suggests Taiwan will strengthen its defence commitment, strengthen its energy procurement, open a market for US companies and invest more in the US.
However, Samp Yun, director of the Stimson Center’s China program, said Trump is being bound by Taiwan Relations Act. This is a domestic law that requires the maintenance of informal relations between the US and the island and provides sufficient hardware to prevent Chinese invasions.
“He can dial (US Taiwan) relationships up and down,” Sun said.
Export control has been introduced, and results are mixed
In April, the White House cited national security and announced it would do so. Limit sales of Nvidia’s H20 computer chips To China. About three months later, the ban was lifted when two governments climbed out of air tariffs and strict trade restrictions.
The decision has disrupted both Republicans and Democrats. Rep. John Mourenard, a Michigan Republican who chairs China’s House Selection Committee, stressed that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick cannot emphasize the Chinese Communist Party of Japan as “using American chips to train the military, censor the people, and infiltrating American innovation.”
In Stockholm, Bescent pushed back concerns that national security could be compromised. “We are extremely hardworking,” Bescent said, adding that there is an interagency process for the National Security Council and the Defense Agency to decide.
“There’s nothing being exchanged for anything,” Bescent said. Addressing the H20 chip in particular, Bessent said Nvidia’s “technology chip stack” is “going well”. US companies are prohibited from selling the most advanced chips to China.
That may not be convincing enough.
Teneo’s Wildau said the Chinese Hawks are most concerned that the H20 decision could mark the beginning of a series of moves to roll back export controls from the Biden era, once considered “permanent and unnegotiable.”
