Xi Jinping and Donald Trump still need to find a strategic footing

It is hard to know how to assess the just-concluded Mar-a-Lago summit between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping (習近平). Should one feel exulted that an interpersonal train wreck was avoided between the two leaders, each of whom is hypersensitive about “face”? Should one feel despondent that, with so many issues crying out for cooperation, the two sides were unable to achieve and announce any significant, tangible outcomes?

Whether this summit is declared a success, irrelevant, or something else, it is likely to be followed by US decisions and actions that will be viewed in Beijing as incompatible with China’s interests, a more cooperative relationship, and indeed incompatible with Beijing’s thinking about the requirements for regional stability. In the not-too-distant future, we will almost certainly see Washington make sensitive, and significant, weapons and weapons-related sales to Taiwan; impose more aggressive countervailing duties and anti-dumping actions against Chinese firms, not least steel-related; continue to deploy anti-missile systems in South Korea that Beijing sees as threatening (unless a new South Korean government reverses course); and we may see the initiation of secondary sanctions imposed on Chinese financial and other entities engaged in UN-prohibited transactions with North Korea.