Although this was President Donald Trump’s first state visit to China, he had met with President Xi Jinping twice before. What issues were raised? What has been accomplished? What’s the status of China-US relations? Robert Lawrence Kuhn asked Yuan Peng, vice president of China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

“It is very interesting. We have four new mechanisms set by both President Xi and President Trump during Xi’s April visit to his Mar-a-Lago. I think then this time they asked the four hosts of the mechanism to brief the two of them for five minutes regarding the outcome of these four dialogues. And then the two leaders conclude what are the achievements through these four dialogues. This, I think, is very important. For example, this is a guide for the future relations, how these relations move ahead.”

Note that the "Four High-level Dialogue Mechanisms" were established during President Xi’s first meeting with President Trump in April 2017, they included China-US diplomatic security dialogue, comprehensive economic dialogue, law enforcement and cyber security dialogue, and social and people-to-people exchanges.

The official statement of President Xi and President Trump noted the DPRK. But it seems that there wasn’t much new coherence. In his comments, Trump said that President Xi and he agreed that past policies had not been effective. Robert Lawrence Kuhn raised the question with Dr. Jonathan Pollack, Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution: “Is there anything in the summit announcement that indicates a change in policy?” 

“I think there is definitely a degree of change. The multi-lateral sanctions through the UN Security Council have much more teeth. But China is not undertaking this to favor the United States. It is something that reflects China’s own definition of its national interests. I think there is a fundamental difference between how President Trump defines the DPRK issue and the way China does. There is an urgency in the way Trump puts it. He is trying to put pressure on China to somehow do more. At the end of the day, I am not convinced that there is a true meeting at the minds here if we look at what Trump really expects of China and what China and Xi Jinping feels is possible to do under these circumstances.”

Trump’s security vision extends to "a free and open Indo-Pacific region." People cannot help but wonder if this strategy is aimed at "surrounding" or "containing" China? What challenges and pitfalls will China and the US face in the near future? Robert Lawrence Kuhn discusses this question with Professor Rana Mitter, director of the China Centre at Oxford University.

“If we think about various organization at the same time, for example, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - this is a sort of an incipient security and economic agreement among the powers, China and India are both included, with Beijing’s blessing. We can think about the One Belt and One Road Initiative, in which India has been invited to take part. The point is that these two counties are in discussion with each other. And if we think about the importance of ‘Indo’ in Indo-Pacfiic, what Indians want to know about is this: what is the ability of China to project naval power, blue water naval power, into the Indian Ocean?”

Professor Mitter says that to rekindle trust and confidence is the key for China and US to overcome future challenges. “China and the US have the same challenge in the next two years. And that is to rekindle trust and co-operations with middle powers in the region: Vietnam, Philippines, South Korean. These countries are also a little bit worried about both the direction of the US’ and China’s policies in the next few years. And they think that both countries need to rekindle confidence and work together with that aim.”