Opinion | Trump's Beijing Summit Leaves The Rest Asking: Who Will Stop China Now?

Updated: May 17, 2026 11:08 am IST Published On May 17, 2026 11:06 am IST Last Updated On May 17, 2026 11:08 am IST

Published On May 17, 2026 11:06 am IST

Last Updated On May 17, 2026 11:08 am IST

The most-watched summit meeting has ended. Trump had arrived in Beijing with a phalanx of businessmen, with just three of them having a combined net worth of over $1 trillion. That was unsurprising, given the nature of the Trump presidency, famed for its deal-making and emphasis on trade. But none of that enthused China. Unlike his 2017 visit as an honoured guest, with an unprecedented state dinner in the 'forbidden city', this visit had no great pomp and ceremony attached to it. Major issues on the table were well known, but the devil lay in the details. Critics observed that the US President went to Beijing on a weak wicket, given the Iran war and his low popularity ratings.

Weighing Up The Opponent

Even before the visit commenced, the first task for officials on both sides was to assess the strength of the leadership at the table, in terms of a winning hand or a poor one. The agenda points would have been fixed long ago and likely centred around trade, particularly Artificial Intelligence, Taiwan, and the Iran war, in some order of priority for Trump. What mattered was how many cards each assessed the other as holding.

First, China would have assessed the US presidency from the considerable drop in Trump's poll approvals, which, at 6% negative, is a lot and hinges mainly on inflation, the highest in two years. Xi, on the other hand, has no poll approvals to worry about publicly, but his recent 'purges' of over 100 senior military officials, among them two top generals - Zhang Youxia, and the chief of the Joint Staff Department, Liu Zhenli - on alleged corruption charges, would have been seen as a minus point. This was touted as a move to end patronage networks and strengthen the imperturbable Xi. But given past ingresses of the US Central Intelligence Agency - not to mention a new video that seeks to tap into unease within the army, especially the middle ranks - the possibility of some of them at least being compromised remains. The reverse also holds true. Very recently, a Southern California Mayor pleaded guilty to being a Chinese agent. The Federal Bureau of Investigation provides a copious list of arrests on such charges - four were in April alone. Fantastically, Trump remarked that both countries spied on each other , an admission that no other president would ever have made.

Then there's the flip side. The Trump administration has had its own 'purges', firing some 43% of his 'A' team, including senior-level officers in his office and at least a dozen top cabinet-level officers, who were either forced to resign or shown the door. So, on that count of personal popularity and system degradation, the score remains 1-1. That means policy uncertainty........

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