Trump heads to Beijing for key summit on trade and tensions News

U.S. President Donald Trump is due in Beijing on Wednesday in one of the biggest trips on his international calendar. Trump's talks with China's leader Xi Jinping are aimed at overcoming some of the differences between the two superpowers and could set the tone for the years ahead. It's the first visit to China by a U.S. president in nearly a decade when Donald Trump himself made the trip in 2017. He was clearly impressed by his reception in the Chinese capital where officials described the level of pop and ceremony as state visit plus. This time the summit comes against a backdrop of trade tensions which came to a head last year in a tit-for-tat tariff war. The future of Taiwan too remains a point of contention as the island democracy faces down increasing military pressure from Beijing. Joining me now in the studio is DW's Clifford Kunin, a China analyst whom you may recognize from our business team. Clifford it's great to have you back in the show. Now last time Donald Trump went to Beijing in 2017 he was welcomed with what was called a state visit plus. There was a lot of pomp and pageantry. Is China going to woo him in the same way this time around or do you expect a more chilly reception? I can't believe it's nine years since the last time he was there and looking at the pictures today you know it looks so familiar. But I think it'll be, I don't think it's going to be a chilly reception. Despite the fact that there's a lot of friction between them at the moment over trade, over the gulf, the Iran war, all of these issues that are dividing them at the moment. But I still think it's going to be very much an attempt to patch things up or at least head in that direction. They have, they've got, they haven't as I said they haven't met for nine years so they've got quite a lot of work to do but I think it's going to be you know the great hall of the people, all the pageantry, all the pomp. Trump loves that and the Chinese are very good at dealing with Trump so I think that's what we're going to see. What are both sides hoping to get out of this meeting? Well I think for Trump he's talking about a thing called the five B's which is sell more Boeing's, beef and soybeans and he also wants to create a board of investment and a board of trade. Now these are aimed at separating economic issues from security issues because they have a lot of tension on that and so these five B's see how it goes. I mean I imagine they will get concessions on beef and Boeing's and you know these sort of deals are easily done. The board of trade is quite interesting, you know he does love boards, Donald Trump, he's always got a piece board of peace and board of it but he's and this is part of the CEO diplomacy that he has. I think the board of trade is going to be kind of interesting because if they can actually separate the economic issues from security issues then they could actually come closer and they could bring these trade tensions to an end and as we know these trade tensions that we've seen with tariffs and everything have caused so much stress to the global economy over the past few years. Would China be up for that? I think so, I mean it depends who manages this board of trade, who's the CEO but I think they'll definitely listen to it. I mean as I say I think like things like buying some whatever few hundred Boeing's is something that because they need them anyway and if that's also the cost of you know making sure that they get these things that they really need from the US like these AI tech chips and all these other high tech things that they're being denied at the moment because of the trade dispute. So I think then they definitely agree with it. Let's look at what China wants out of this meeting. Taiwan always a huge topic, what concessions are they going to be pushing for there? Yeah this is a big issue at the moment. Everyone's slightly worried about maybe that Trump will sell Taiwan down the river that in exchange for selling a few Boeing's that he would agree to you know harsher language on Taiwan independence for example because at the moment it's self-ruled and the US is always committed to defending it and that maybe if he softens the language it could be a signal you know. So people are very worried about what he's going to do on Taiwan. Also on selling arms to Taiwan which is something that the US does a lot of to defend Taiwan that maybe he'll agree to to reduce arms sales. So people are very worried about what he's going to do in Taiwan. Then trade and tariffs another huge source of friction in the past. Do you get the sense that that is going to change with this meeting that they're going to find common ground? I think at the moment they've you know they have suspended these they've reduced the tariffs and they've also from on Chinese goods and then they've also secured critical minerals. So I think we're going to see a continuation of that. I don't really see anything too much on that. My feeling is that this is a big deal because the tariffs are always his big signature policy for so long. His favorite word. Exactly exactly so and part of this this visit is about getting Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan to go back to to Washington later in the year. And I imagine that's much more I can see the pageantry there you know in front of the White House declaring the tariff dispute over. I think that's much more Trump style. So that would be my feeling. But again as we know we no one can predict what will happen with Donald Trump. Yeah let's look at some of the details here because Trump is traveling with a pretty remarkable business delegation. Elon Musk is going with him. Tim Cook of Apple is going with him. Looking at that list what do you think he's looking for in terms of a deal or deals. Yeah I mean it's oligarchs and tech bros. It's really amazing. And also you've got you know you've got people there from from Goldman Sachs. You've got a lot of finance people. So it's almost like the early 2000s again when when the WTO was had been in the World Trade Organization when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization. You've suddenly got this feeling that you know that they're trying to open China up again for business which is kind of running very counter to what US policy has been on on China for a long time. So it's a very powerful signal I think that that this could be about what it could be about what is what is about to happen. But we also have Jensen Huang is not there the head of NVIDIA because I think AI tech is still something that the US very much wants to keep for itself. It wants to be the world leader and the innovator on AI tech. So it's much more in some ways more traditional industries. And but it's definitely keeping the AI bigwigs in reserve. We're looking at this meeting. Arguably the two most powerful men on the planet are getting together. Who has the upper hand. There's been a lot of talk about this. I mean I think Xi Jinping certainly thinks that he has the upper hand. And you know they've always the Chinese Communist Party it doesn't have to worry about opinion polls or four year cycles. So they can pretty much take it easy whereas obviously Trump is his approval ratings are low. He needs a win. Iran isn't going well despite what he says. And so on the surface it looks like Xi Jinping does have the upper hand. However you can never write the US off. I mean if you know the names who we just listed the people who are traveling with them you know these are huge companies and global leaders. And China is also struggling with its economy. It's still sluggish growth in the domestic economy particularly because people are not spending money. And what it's doing is it's exporting its way out of trouble. So China also needs a win. So I think it's good. It's going to be interesting to see. I think at the moment it's pretty evenly matched even if Trump appears to be a little bit more on the ropes perhaps than Xi Jinping. The US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant has called China the biggest risk to the global economy. At this point in time what common interests do Beijing and Washington have. Well I think a lot of it is down to the issues that we're talking about. I mean these exports that China is doing it's flooding Europe and Southeast Asia with these goods that are not going to the US. So China needs to be exporting to the US again if it wants to kickstart the economy. And when Scott Besant made those comments he was saying that these exports are bringing all these imbalances into the global economy. So what you see is and that threatens economic growth within global economic growth. But they still have a lot of shared interests and they're the two biggest economies. They for supply chains they need each other. China needs the US to buy its goods. And they also need to be on the they also need to have and China needs to the US needs what it can offer. So they do have a lot of common ground. A meeting to watch. Thank you so much Clifford.