China’s President Xi Jinping concluded his three-day state visit to the US on Friday, 25 September, with hopes of enhanced cooperation and partnership between the world’s two largest economies.
Xi arrived in the US on Wednesday and received a large-scale welcome from President Donald Trump. Though this was their third in-person meeting, it was Xi’s first state visit to the US in over a decade.
On Thursday, the leaders had a long in-person conversation in the White House and finished the day with a state dinner with 130 guests, including tech executives. Though the US is yet to release its version of the official proceedings, reports indicate they discussed a range of outstanding issues, such as the dispute over trade and tariffs, cooperation in artificial intelligence, the issue of Taiwan, and the US-Israeli war on Iran.
During the meeting with Trump, Xi called for strategic stability in the China-US relationship, which will benefit both countries and the people around the world, Xinhua reported.
“China and the US should be partners, not rivals,” Xi said.
Xi’s statement comes at a time when the two countries are negotiating a longer trade deal after briefly facing each other in a tariff war last year. Both countries agreed to extend their temporary trade truce, which halted the tariff war till January, to give their negotiators more time.
The so-called Busan Trade Truce was set to expire in November this year.
Xi hoped that “both sides would stay committed to the principles of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation and promote the sustained, stable and sound development of China-US economic and trade relations.”
Technology and AI
Successive administrations in the US have characterised China’s advancements in technology and other economic sectors as a threat to American interests and have tried to curb them by restricting its access to technology.
In his attempt to address such apprehensions, Xi proposed that “both sides work towards a relationship featuring cooperation as the mainstay, moderate competition, manageable differences, and the promise of peace.”
Talking about the competition in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Xi offered increased coordination and cooperation between the countries as a way of mutual benefit.
While emphasising that “two sides should maintain human control over AI technologies, uphold a people-centred approach and the principle of using AI for good,” he proposed greater exchange of information to “prevent any misuse and abuse of AI.”
Xi also expressed hope that Chinese companies “are treated fairly in the US” while inviting more US companies to invest in China. “Working together, we can lengthen the list of cooperation and shorten the list of issues,” he underlined.
The US has sanctioned or put a large number of Chinese companies, including its AI firms, on various watch lists in recent years after accusing them of working with the Chinese armed forces or being involved in the so-called technology theft.
Notably, however, major US tech and finance executives such as Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Eric Yuan of Zoom, Kelly Ortberg of Boeing, Larry Fink of Blackrock, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla were present at the state dinner for Xi’s visit hosted at the White House on Thursday, 24 September, though no details of cooperation between US and Chinese tech firms have emerged.
Taiwan
Reiterating China’s resolve to “safeguard national reunification and territorial integrity,” Xi expressed hope that the US will “adhere to the correct position on opposing ‘Taiwan independence’ and handle the Taiwan question with caution.”
China has repeatedly accused the US of promoting the separatist cause in Taiwan, despite officially adhering to the “one China policy.” The US under Trump has sold or agreed to sell billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Taiwan in complete disregard of China’s objections.
China has also accused the US and its allies in the region of promoting an arms race by deploying advanced weapon systems close to its borders.
Xi said if the US follows the correct position on Taiwan, it “will enable both the countries to lay a solid foundation for their strategic cooperation and the development of their bilateral relationship.”
US-Israeli war on Iran
China has refused to intervene or get involved in the US-Israeli war on Iran, despite Trump’s repeated calls for them to do so. China has maintained the war was unnecessary and repeatedly warned against its prolongation. It has supported the interim peace deal signed in June under international mediation.
Xi reiterated this position during his visit to the US, expressing hope that both Iran and the US would soon return to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and end the war.
Xi claimed that “China-US cooperation may not solve every problem in the world, but without it, it would be hard to solve many of the world’s problems” and proposed more dialogue and “mechanisms of crisis communication and prevention” between their armed forces.
It sounds like Xi is explaining in very simple language that America wants and wants, while giving nothing that China has stated it wants. Sort of like Iran, sort of like Russia.
The pretense that a government can say one thing, and act in complete indifference to its own words has worn thin in the past decade. The two sides are much closer to total conflict than peaceful coexistence, only because one side sees an economic option to lie and pretend, and thinks that it comes at no cost.