Aaron Friedberg on Fallout from the China Summit

Thank you for having me be back.

So the summit was late last week, uh, President Trump there for a couple of days, uh, with, uh, Xi Jinping.

Uh, what, what, what's your main takeaway? And then we'll get into some of the details and then some of the broader implications.

My, I, my main takeaway, I suppose, is there was not much of a there there, uh, certainly not in terms of deliverables.

Uh, really very little, um, concrete that was, was accomplished.

I, I don't know that that's a particular surprise.

The thing that struck me was, uh, that Trump's position seemed to be quite weak, uh, and he played a weak hand poorly, I think.

[laughs]

Uh, the Chinese side got, I would imagine, most if not everything that they wanted out of it.

Uh, and I'm not sure that we got much of anything, and we may have given up a bit, at least in terms of appearances and prestige.

So it's, uh, kind of discouraging, and that made even more the case by Trump's remarks about Taiwan afterwards.

Uh, it's not, not good.

Yeah.

Well, that's a very good summary.

[laughs] We can click off, we can click off now and just let people-

Not very eloquent but yeah, not good

... read the press.

Worth, no, very eloquent, so let's go through some of that.

Thank you for having me be back.

So the summit was late last week, uh, President Trump there for a couple of days, uh, with, uh, Xi Jinping.

Uh, what, what, what's your main takeaway? And then we'll get into some of the details and then some of the broader implications.

My, I, my main takeaway, I suppose, is there was not much of a there there, uh, certainly not in terms of deliverables.

Uh, really very little, um, concrete that was, was accomplished.

I, I don't know that that's a particular surprise.

The thing that struck me was, uh, that Trump's position seemed to be quite weak, uh, and he played a weak hand poorly, I think.

[laughs]

Uh, the Chinese side got, I would imagine, most if not everything that they wanted out of it.

Uh, and I'm not sure that we got much of anything, and we may have given up a bit, at least in terms of appearances and prestige.

So it's, uh, kind of discouraging, and that made even more the case by Trump's remarks about Taiwan afterwards.

Uh, it's not, not good.

Yeah.

Well, that's a very good summary.

[laughs] We can click off, we can click off now and just let people-

Not very eloquent but yeah, not good

... read the press.

Worth, no, very eloquent, so let's go through some of that.