Summits between leaders such as Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are hard to read because they mix public theatre with private bargaining. Unlike past encounters between U.S. and Chinese presidents, which capped long, structured negotiations led by specialist officials, today’s meetings are less predictable. Power in both capitals is concentrated around individual leaders, making the staged events more dramatic and the off-camera talks more consequential and secretive.
That opacity means it may be weeks, months or even years before the implications of the two-day Beijing summit on May 14–15 become clear. Few concrete announcements were made, even on long-running disputes such as trade and Chinese purchases of U.S. goods. Under earlier presidents, silence would usually signal that formal negotiations had failed. With Trump, who personalises diplomacy and prefers informal dealmaking, outcomes will be judged by what happens next rather than by a negotiated communique.
One certainty is that the leaders plan to keep meeting: a reciprocal summit at the White House is already scheduled for September 24. That raises a choice for other countries: welcome regular dialogue between the world’s two largest military and economic powers, or worry that private agreements between them could disadvantage others.
An early test of which it will be may come not in Asia but in the Middle East. On the surface, Iran and the United States are at an impasse. Trump dismissed Tehran’s peace proposals as “unacceptable”; Iran has not renounced enrichment and retains fissile materials; and tensions continue around the Strait of Hormuz. Yet Iran’s foreign minister visited China just before the summit, presumably to present Tehran’s position and to take the temperature in Beijing. After the meeting, Trump said he and Xi “feel very similar” about ending the conflict, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Hormuz, which suggests room for a breakthrough.
Beijing was more guarded than Trump about the substance of their conversations. Still, the real indicators of the summit’s impact will be the choices that follow in Tehran and Washington. Iran’s military elite, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, play a decisive role in Tehran’s posture, and recent targeted killings and strikes in the region have changed local calculations. The next steps could be a return to violence on multiple fronts, but that would contradict Trump’s stated aims. A more plausible path is renewed diplomatic exchanges, possibly mediated by Pakistan, where Chinese discreet involvement could help bridge the nuclear question—particularly regarding the handling and supervision of remaining nuclear material.
Trump is unlikely to have asked Xi to intervene overtly in negotiations; he knows Xi would rebuff public interference. But he may have sought Chinese persuasion behind the scenes to nudge Iran toward a compromise that Trump could present at home as a diplomatic win. For such a compromise to look credible in Washington, Iran would likely need to accept not just promises but verifiable measures on enrichment and stored material. Chinese oversight or verification could provide the kind of credibility that neither U.S. nor Iranian domestic audiences would otherwise trust.
That raises an oft-heard worry: might Trump trade U.S. support for Taiwan for Chinese help on Iran? In Beijing, Xi used his clearest language on Taiwan, warning the United States to tread carefully or risk conflict. Trump, for his part, made no public commitments on Taiwan and declined to say whether he would approve a major arms sale to Taipei. The contrast between hawkish advisers inside the U.S. administration and a president who often sounds conciliatory toward China makes American China policy unpredictable and anxious for allies.
Yet Taiwan is not necessarily the biggest immediate risk. China appears cautious about forcing the issue now, and any deal struck with the United States under Trump could prove temporary. A more pressing danger is signalled by another visitor: Vladimir Putin was due in Beijing soon after Trump left. Trump praised Xi effusively in Beijing and, over his second term, has taken actions that have helped Putin—curtailing U.S. weapon supplies to Ukraine, loosening some sanctions, and even facilitating a temporary ceasefire to enable Russia to hold its Victory Day parade without fear of long-range Ukrainian strikes.
Trump’s apparent warmth toward both Xi and Putin creates a strategic risk: he may not so much abandon Taiwan as abandon Ukraine in the near term. With European assistance and its own resilience, Ukraine has regained initiative in places, and Russia is under strain despite continuing missile strikes on civilians. Putin might seek to leverage China’s influence to push the United States into further reductions in support for Ukraine, offering Chinese help on Iran and other issues in return. That bargain—trading influence in one region for concessions in another—would be a classic example of transactional diplomacy.
Whether such deals will be struck, and what their costs will be to U.S. allies and to global stability, remains to be seen. The Beijing summit’s lack of public detail leaves the world watching subsequent diplomatic moves for clues about whether these private conversations produce cooperation that reduces conflict or bargains that shift power and protections in ways that unsettle others.
Bill Emmott is a former long-time editor in chief of The Economist and the author of Deterrence, Diplomacy and the Risk of Conflict over Taiwan (2024). This piece is the English original of an article first published in Italian by La Stampa and was republished with permission. It also appears on Bill Emmott’s Global View.
