With goose-stepping People’s Liberation Army soldiers on one side and US business titans lined up on another, China’s welcome ceremony for US President Donald Trump melded corporate interest and communist pageantry.
Trump had suggested he might get a hug from Xi Jinping, but while the Chinese president settled for a handshake the pomp laid on in the warm and hazy air of Tiananmen Square set an upbeat tone for a two-day summit between the world’s largest economies and most powerful nations.
“We’re going to have a fantastic future together,” Trump said once he and Xi had moved inside the imposing Great Hall of the People after receiving a 21-gun salute and the cheers of hundreds of bouquet-waving children.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and head of Tesla and SpaceX, Jensen Huang, chief of chip designer Nvidia, and Apple chief executive Tim Cook, had all lined up with other business leaders with top US officials and cabinet members on the hall’s steps for the ceremony.
The US and China needed to be “partners, not rivals”, Xi said.
For the 79-year-old American president, bogged down by dismal approval ratings and rising inflation and with no clear end in sight to an unpopular war on Iran, the trip has all the trappings of a reprieve from the drooping reality of his second term.
Despite having built much of his political career by attacking globalisation and lashing out at China’s rise in the global economy, Trump arrived in Beijing with a hopeful pitch to rekindle US dealmaking in the country. Xi played along, assuring the corporate leaders that China’s door to business would “only open wider and wider”.
“Mr Xi and President Trump were incredible,” Nvidia chief executive Huang told reporters as he headed out of the Great Hall.
But there were no signs on Thursday of any big breakthroughs or announcements on the business and trade front, suggesting concrete accomplishments from the summit could be fairly limited. And there was no concealing the tensions underlying ties between Washington and Beijing.
The US-Israeli war on Iran and resulting near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has deprived China of important oil supplies and raised global energy prices. Meanwhile, Washington has accused Chinese companies of providing support to Tehran.
“We’ve made clear to them that any support for Iran would obviously be detrimental for our relationship. That obviously is going to come up in this conversation,” Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, told Fox News on Air Force One as he travelled to China with Trump.
Even more bluntly, Xi on Thursday sought to set a clear red line with Trump when it comes to Taiwan, which China considers to be part of its territory but the US supports with weapons and trade.
“The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations. If handled properly, the overall stability of bilateral relations can be maintained,” Xi told Trump, according to state news agency Xinhua. “If mishandled, the two countries could face confrontation or even conflict,” he added ominously.
Still, Trump has always touted his personal relationship with Xi as excellent, and appeared determined to show that they could overcome any differences and stabilise the relationship — or at least prevent it from spiralling downwards.
“I want to thank President Xi, my friend, for this magnificent welcome,” Trump said as he made a toast at a state banquet on Thursday evening, where business leaders including Musk and Cook joined the leaders and other guests to dine on crispy beef ribs, roast duck and pork buns.
Trump’s table was decorated with a model of Beijing’s Temple of Heaven. The sprawling complex, where emperors used to pray for good harvests, is a monument to peace and prosperity that the president declared a “great place” when he visited with Xi earlier on Thursday.
But some lower-level friction was apparent at the site, including an “intense discussion” between US and Chinese officials, after “Chinese security refused to allow a Secret Service agent . . . to enter the temple compound with his weapon”, according to a member of the “pool” of White House reporters accompanying Trump.
Trump’s coziness towards Xi has evolved into a pillar of his global diplomacy, and has not become a major focus of criticism from his supporters in the US.
But in China, Trump’s stance towards Xi was being portrayed almost as supplication.
The Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper published an article highlighting Trump’s lavish praise for the Chinese president.
“You are a great leader,” the piece quoted Trump as saying. “Everyone in the United States is talking about my visit. I feel very honoured to be here.”
When translating Trump’s remarks from English to Mandarin, Chinese state media also used a common practice that makes Xi look superior. They portrayed Trump as using a formal form of the Chinese word for “you” that signals respect when addressing Xi. The Chinese leader, on the other hand, used the more common form of “you” when he addressed his US guest.
A popular post on Weibo, China’s microblogging site, said Trump’s conduct was “often casual” towards foreign royal families and he was “dismissive in his remarks about some smaller countries”. “Only when facing the great civilisation of China does he show the highest level of respect,” it said.
