Mr Xi goes to Washington — Stability amid tension?

Now, Donald Trump has continued to speak positively about his relationship with Xi Jinping.

Indeed, some analysts have suggested this summit was time to impress his voters ahead of the US midterm elections in November.

But we've also just seen the passing of this new bill in Congress threatening sanctions against countries which import Russian oil, as China does.

We've seen the deal between Denmark and the US over Greenland, which Donald Trump has said will restrict Chinese and Russian expansion there.

And we've also had an acknowledgement that the US has deployed weapons in space, something which has caused anxiety in China.

So how does all of this fit together with the two nations pledge to form this new stable and constructive relationship?

I think what it points out, Duncan, is that it is still very much wet clay in terms of the way in which China policy is being constructed here in Washington.

And no less than that, we should note that it's still pretty wet clay or perhaps the softer soil of the Yellow River Valley.

on the China side as well, where actually they're first of all looking to adapt to a fast changing set of American positions and also working out what they think is in their own most likely interest.

So I would say that structurally, some of the things you're talking about seem to be a product of what, at least from the outside, observers of Washington suggest is a variety of competing interests within the administration.

And then the kind of, you know, final chess master, end of game checkmate move, which I'll describe in a moment.

So in terms of the interests, first of all, one of the things that has been of most interest to China policy watchers in the last, let's say, six months or so, is the rise in significance and heft and agenda setting of the Treasury Department and Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary in particular.

I mean, he was always someone who was obviously quite prominent within the current Trump administration organization.

But his new centrality to China policy on questions of trade and also questions of technology, and we're talking, of course, about AI, amongst other things there, has been widely noticed.

Because at the beginning of this Trump to administration, it was very much Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, who seemed to be leading on all of the sanctions against China, for example.

Yes, and I think the Commerce Department, to the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lucknett, still very much has a voice in the game for what we can see.

And as you say, a lot of the clamping down on very particular types of chip sales and so forth seem to have at least some of their origins in commerce.

Also, of course, the figure who in other circumstances you might think would be more involved with China policy, and to some extent is, and that's, of course, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio.

And there's no question that obviously he has significant and important input from into China questions.

And the State Department continues to maintain a very important office of China coordination.

There are other areas which deal with that.

But I think many people, you know, you don't need to know the world situation much to know that South America and the Middle East have been taking up a lot of oxygen.

And so from that point of view.

the shift towards a more treasury department commercial trade and technology driven argument about what to do next with china i think is what we're seeing and i mentioned that there's a sort of grandmaster kind of move at the end well that of course is the president that's donald trump who in the end will be the decider everyone agrees that they agree on nothing else they agree that in the end what trump wants the china policy to be will be the china policy

But as you say, he has also been fairly distracted by events in other parts of the world.

Now, Donald Trump has continued to speak positively about his relationship with Xi Jinping.

Indeed, some analysts have suggested this summit was time to impress his voters ahead of the US midterm elections in November.

But we've also just seen the passing of this new bill in Congress threatening sanctions against countries which import Russian oil, as China does.

We've seen the deal between Denmark and the US over Greenland, which Donald Trump has said will restrict Chinese and Russian expansion there.

And we've also had an acknowledgement that the US has deployed weapons in space, something which has caused anxiety in China.

So how does all of this fit together with the two nations pledge to form this new stable and constructive relationship?

I think what it points out, Duncan, is that it is still very much wet clay in terms of the way in which China policy is being constructed here in Washington.

And no less than that, we should note that it's still pretty wet clay or perhaps the softer soil of the Yellow River Valley.

on the China side as well, where actually they're first of all looking to adapt to a fast changing set of American positions and also working out what they think is in their own most likely interest.

So I would say that structurally, some of the things you're talking about seem to be a product of what, at least from the outside, observers of Washington suggest is a variety of competing interests within the administration.

And then the kind of, you know, final chess master, end of game checkmate move, which I'll describe in a moment.

So in terms of the interests, first of all, one of the things that has been of most interest to China policy watchers in the last, let's say, six months or so, is the rise in significance and heft and agenda setting of the Treasury Department and Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary in particular.

I mean, he was always someone who was obviously quite prominent within the current Trump administration organization.

But his new centrality to China policy on questions of trade and also questions of technology, and we're talking, of course, about AI, amongst other things there, has been widely noticed.

Because at the beginning of this Trump to administration, it was very much Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, who seemed to be leading on all of the sanctions against China, for example.

Yes, and I think the Commerce Department, to the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lucknett, still very much has a voice in the game for what we can see.

And as you say, a lot of the clamping down on very particular types of chip sales and so forth seem to have at least some of their origins in commerce.

Also, of course, the figure who in other circumstances you might think would be more involved with China policy, and to some extent is, and that's, of course, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio.

And there's no question that obviously he has significant and important input from into China questions.

And the State Department continues to maintain a very important office of China coordination.

There are other areas which deal with that.

But I think many people, you know, you don't need to know the world situation much to know that South America and the Middle East have been taking up a lot of oxygen.

And so from that point of view.

the shift towards a more treasury department commercial trade and technology driven argument about what to do next with china i think is what we're seeing and i mentioned that there's a sort of grandmaster kind of move at the end well that of course is the president that's donald trump who in the end will be the decider everyone agrees that they agree on nothing else they agree that in the end what trump wants the china policy to be will be the china policy

But as you say, he has also been fairly distracted by events in other parts of the world.