Bill Echikson
Welcome, everyone. I’m Bill Echikson. I’m a senior fellow at CEPA based in Brussels, actually, but I’m moderating this transatlantic panel about President Trump’s visit to China. And it seems like we have a lot of interest, a lot of people on the line. For housekeeping, I’ll introduce the speakers, and then have them introduce themselves with an opening question, and then we’ll open it up for questions. Please leave questions in the chat, and who you’d like to direct them to, and that will be the most efficient. So let’s get right into it. We have four wonderful speakers: James Lewis, who’s a Distinguished Fellow at CEPA, Reinhard Bütikofer, who’s a former German MEP European parliamentarian, also a Senior Fellow at CEPA, Sarah Cook, who’s the author of Underreported China, and the founder and principal analyst of China Rights Analytics and Advising. Plus, finally, Christopher Walker, who’s the Vice President at CEPA in Washington, and a former Freedom House and other distinguished positions before arriving. Let’s start right in. Jim, if you could explain to us the American view of this visit, this bylaw, this summit between President Trump and President Xi.
Jim Lewis
Sure, thanks, Bill. Neither side is looking to build a detente, so this is a transactional meeting. That’s what everyone says about Trump. Both sides think they’re coming from a position of strength, and so there’s not going to be any desire on the Chinese side to make concessions, unless it’s in exchange for something like a relaxation of controls on artificial intelligence, which Xi prizes highly, or perhaps something on Taiwan. But their counteroffers will largely be purchases of American goods and services. If you’ve looked at the failure of Boeing to sell any products in China, that’s going to be on the table. Trump doesn’t like existing institutions like the WTO, so he might offer something like a Board of Trade. There are rumors about that. We haven’t seen much of it. I’m not as concerned about it because these things never have any legs. If the Chinese do it, it’ll be a concession, unless there’s a major fumble, which you can’t rule out. Neither side will make much progress on the two major foreign policy issues. Trump will press the Chinese to help him on Iran, but they’ll be unwilling. The Chinese will press Trump to make concessions on Taiwan. We’ll see what we get out of that. But overall, this is sort of typical for this administration, not a lot of planning, not looking forward. I’ll stop there.
Bill Echikson
Thanks. Reinhardt, your view from Germany and from Europe more generally, about what we can expect or fear.
Reinhard Bütikofer
Well, thank you for having me for a European point of view. I think most observers would start from the point that they see Trump weakened vis-à-vis when you compare the situation of today with the situation of Trump’s visit in 2017. We don’t expect Trump to either play hardball or to cut a real grand deal. The major expectation is that Trump and Xi will prolong more or less the trade truce that they agreed upon in October of last year. I think in Europe, that would be seen as beneficial to the European market. Also, a second hope, maybe not an expectation, but a hope, would be that Trump would manage to address some of the trickier recent Chinese decisions vis-à-vis the de-risking and the application of foreign sanctions. They have decreed new measures that will make it very hard for European or other international companies to work in the Chinese market and in the US market, for instance, at the same time, under rules that are effectively contradictory. So that could be very interesting for us if he addresses that. And the third point would be to expect a very high level of attention on the Taiwan issue, because the fact that China is for grounding Taiwan in their approach to this meeting signals, from what I can understand, that they feel they have a stronger hand on trade, and they will try to trade that for some concession on something. And if Trump were to go there in any considerable way, that would have strong repercussions in Europe, I would assume. And finally, there would be hope that Trump at least mentions human rights issues like Jimmy Lai or Ilham Tohti, which I believe Xi Jinping will not be happy to hear, but we would be very happy if Trump did that.
Bill Echikson
Thanks, Reinhardt. Sarah, I guess he set you up to talk about whether there will be any human rights angle at the summit or not.
Sarah Cook
Well, I’m not under any illusion that this is going to be a major item, but I have a few thoughts. One, Trump has said he will raise Jimmy Lai’s case, and so I think people are watching that specifically. There’s also a whole host of people jailed in China for religious or political or ethnic reasons who have family members in the United States, US citizens, and in many of those cases, the family members have been targeted because their relatives in the US have been vocal. Rashana Boss is one, and Asrajin, the pastor, whose daughter is in the US, is another. There are lower-profile ones, Falun Gong practitioners and others. So one thing that would be great, and again, I don’t think this has to be a major item. It can be. It actually creates strategic leverage when you raise these issues that they don’t want you to talk about. And I think when there’s a US tie, it’s not that we’re just coming to lecture you. Here is a list of people in my country, constituents of mine, who have a family member who you’ve arrested and are targeting. And I think the thing to remember is, will these people be released? Unlikely, but it will protect them. So I think that’s one thing. I think an even stronger point that I would hope Trump would raise is the issue of transnational repression in the United States and PRC agents actively working to undermine civil society, to undermine elections. In some of these cases, the prosecutions are directly tied to Xi Jinping. There was one case in California. It’s actually a picture of a man who was convicted in the US of acting as an agent and trying to undermine Taiwan and things like that in California, and Shen Yun and Falun Gong in New York. There’s a picture of him shaking hands with Xi Jinping and John Chen. He’s actually met with Xi Jinping three times over the last decade, which is just about how many times Trump has met with Xi Jinping himself. So I think it really behooves the United States to say, “Look, I know this is going on. I know you’ve met with people who are actively undermining freedoms and rights and democracy and security in our country, and I want you to stop it.” Whether Xi will stop or not, I actually think showing that you’re willing to raise it can create leverage on some of these other priorities that the administration has.
Bill Echikson
Thanks, Sarah. And finally, Chris, what are your thoughts about the geopolitical stakes at this summit?
Christopher Walker
Thank you, Bill. I might start with some observations on the China-Russia relationship, because this has been so integral to both the wars in Ukraine and Iran. I think it’s worth noting that the relationship that’s been built has proven to be durable and adaptable between Beijing and Moscow, and much of this is a function of the relationship that’s been built between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, which is now effectively over a decade and a half period of time since Xi Jinping assumed paramount power in 2012. That was also the year that Putin returned to the presidency after a four-year interval in the Prime Minister’s seat, and since that time, the two leaders have met a reported 50 times in person and virtually, and flowing from that has been, I would argue, reactions by their respective bureaucracies to acknowledge the leadership relationship. I’d also argue that the two of them have reached a shared consciousness on top-order issues, including the notion that the dissent that they crush at home is something that they seek to hobble beyond their borders, where circumstances permit, and Sarah Cook just alluded to some of the examples in the US. There is a long list of examples, both from China and Russia, of intrusions into open societies, including the United States, to undermine our systems’ integrity, which definitely deserves more attention. I think Putin and Xi have come to the conclusion that they are stronger together than apart. This is reflected in Beijing’s position on the war in Ukraine. They’re absolutely not neutral. China is providing a range of support to Moscow to prosecute the war in Ukraine. These are often seen in the form of dual-use goods. They include things like machine tools, chemicals, gunpowder, and much more. China works with Russia in the information and propaganda sphere to shunt responsibility for what they are doing and offload this onto the transatlantic democracies. Their investments in the information domain now, I would argue, dwarf what the democracies are doing, and put the United States and its natural allies at a strategic disadvantage. And then finally, I think any notion of the US accomplishing a reverse Kissinger is a fantasy, and accommodating Russia to get more direct focus on China may have been plausible some time ago, a decade plus ago. Today, the situation is different. If anything, I’d say that we need to be arguing, asking ourselves, why at this point, the opposite isn’t true, and that is that Russia, as a weaker power, has decided to side with China and other like-minded regimes, including Iran, against the United States and its natural allies. And of course, this has very significant strategic implications. I’ll stop there.
Bill Echikson
Thanks, Chris. We have our first question. It’s from Bhagyasree Sengupta from the First Post in India, and it’s about India’s desire to follow a policy of strategic autonomy. Is that possible in today’s world of maintaining neutrality between Trump and Xi? Anyone want to jump in and answer that?
Reinhard Bütikofer
I could take that.
Bill Echikson
Go ahead, Reinhardt, thanks.
Reinhard Bütikofer
Well, I would say that autonomy is certainly possible, but that does not imply that neutrality will be possible. As I see that China is pressing harder and harder as we go on Taiwan, limiting the space that other countries have in even informally dealing with Taiwan, China is also pressing harder and harder with their critical raw materials regimes that they try to impose, or with the measures that they just recently passed that will try to stop other countries from de-risking from China In a way in which China has de-risked themselves from the international community. So I think that neutrality is probably a fantasy, but autonomy is still possible.
Bill Echikson
Thanks. Does anyone else want to talk about strategic autonomy between the worlds of Trump and Xi? Anyone want to jump in, and then we’ll go to our next question? Okay, the next question is from Darlene Superville at AAP in Washington. How do you interpret Trump’s somewhat ambivalent comments yesterday about arming Taiwan? He said, quote, “Xi would like us not to,” unquote, but that he’ll have the discussion.
Jim Lewis
So there’s a lot of dispute in the administration that was settled a couple of months ago between the China hawks and the people who are more focused on the economy, and the China hawks lost. But every time we think that means it’s toast for Taiwan, the administration does something that’s a little supportive. It’s hard to credit him with thinking in terms of strategic ambiguity, but that might best describe our position. What everyone’s afraid of, of course, is that in the heat of the moment, he’ll make a concession. But in the long term, it’s in our interest, his interest, to maintain a strong Taiwan. Taiwan is too economically important, too strategically important, to give it back to the Chinese. So I don’t think you’ll see a lot of movement there. You’ll see a discussion. The Chinese will press for it, but I don’t expect concessions.
Bill Echikson
Go ahead, Reinhardt, then Sarah.
Reinhard Bütikofer
I would like to remind everybody of the six assurances which President Reagan gave to Congress and to Taiwan in 1982, the third of which promised not to consult with China beforehand regarding arms sales. I think what the President has been doing is getting dangerously close to violating that assurance. He has not consulted before selling, but he has postponed and is consulting now. I think there needs to be more pressure from Congress to make sure that President Trump sticks with the assurance that Reagan gave.
Bill Echikson
Interesting. Sarah?
Sarah Cook
I would just add that I actually think the AI era is to the benefit of Taiwan, because I think the chips there and everything that is coming into the supply chain reinforces the importance of keeping out of Beijing’s hands at the same time as we’re having debates about whether to sell certain ships to China and so forth. And so I think, as someone coming from the democracy and human rights community, a lot of the people in the administration see Taiwan as an ally because of the democratic system, because there’s so much the United States can learn about how to fend off Chinese influence operations just from the Taiwanese. But I think for those who are more transactional, those who are more economics-focused, we’re seeing, whether it was the rare earths or things like that, you don’t really want critical parts of your tech supply chain, especially at this moment, being in the hands of Beijing. So I would hope that that would actually push maybe that side to be a little bit more supportive of the US holding firm on the commitments it’s made to Taiwan
Christopher Walker
Building on these comments, I think, given the shift in the landscape in the ambitions of these authoritarian regimes encroaching on their neighbors with democratic aspirations, Russia does this with Ukraine and Moldova, among other countries, and its periphery is pressuring Armenia, I think the margin for error that we have is much smaller today, and therefore we need to be meticulous from the US side, from the Democratic allies side in how we treat these issues. In the spirit of what Reinhard Bütikofer just alluded to, Beijing is now systematically and purposefully looking to subjugate Taiwan, and they will continue on that track, absent a steadfast response from Washington and Taiwan’s natural allies.
Bill Echikson
Okay, thanks. The next question, again from India, is something I could answer. Reinhard, I think it’s directed to you. How worried is Europe that a distracted or inward-looking US under Trump could weaken transatlantic unity against both Russia and China? I’ll tee it up and say very, but you can fill it in.
Reinhard Bütikofer
Well, I would argue that transatlantic unity on China is yes, the year’s story that’s gone, and we regret that, and we would hope to have more of it, but it’s not realistic as long as Trump is in the White House and transatlantic unity on China is also something that the European side has sought actively, for instance, through bilateral negotiations between the US and the EU on tech and trade issues, but I don’t see much appetite at the moment in Washington for collaboration with Europe on China, unfortunately.
Bill Echikson
Chris, anything else to say about transatlantic unity?
Christopher Walker
Again, as a matter of principle, China operates with a divide-and-conquer methodology. It’s true across the Atlantic. It’s true to the extent possible within and among European countries. And so our strategic objective is, from the transatlantic democracies’ perspective, that we should be more unified and operate with more solidarity. The fact that we are not is a gift to Beijing, whose leadership is no doubt smiling from ear to ear to see us squabbling among ourselves.
Bill Echikson
Okay, now we have a question from Xiaofei Xu of SCMP. The question, basically, given that the US is preoccupied with what’s going on in the Middle East, what concrete results could come out of the summit? I think, James, you answered a little bit of that, and that Scott Bessent and He Lifeng are meeting in Seoul tomorrow for just one day. Would there be any substantive negotiations on the financial issues, I guess, or business issues, or is this more about locking in deliverables?
Jim Lewis
So, all summits follow a certain pattern, and this one won’t be any different, and that pattern is that both sides look for deliverables. That sometimes means a concession, but the deliverables will probably be Boeing, agricultural products, maybe AI services or goods, or chips, for the Chinese on the trade side, it’ll be a commercial negotiation mainly focused on getting deliverables. I don’t think the US is going to confront China on some of the harder issues. It might. The issue of China relying on US AI products and goods is becoming a big deal because the Chinese are building their own AI capabilities. We know that both leaders think that AI is important. They may overstate it, but on the economic side, I think you’ll mainly see the usual concessions. No big breakthrough.
Bill Echikson
Okay, anyone else on those concrete outcomes, if any? Alright, the next question is from Katie Stallard from the New Statesman, and she says both sides are coming to the summit from a position of strength, but she wonders, how do you think Xi assesses Trump’s key vulnerabilities and vice versa? Going into the summit, I have read articles also saying that Xi sees the United States as a declining power and therefore has the advantage. What would be the reaction, anyone?
Jim Lewis
The Chinese do think the US is in decline, and I’ve had discussions with Chinese officials on this for years. They think we’re in decline, but they had a real shock with Iran and Venezuela, because their stuff didn’t work, their air defenses didn’t work, their missiles didn’t work. And the immediate reaction, of course, of Xi, was to throw scientists and generals into jail. So neither side is particularly concerned about their vulnerabilities. I think for Trump, he’s going to be looking at whether he can get help on Iran. I doubt he will, but that will be one of the things. There are multiple pieces moving around the board to get something in Iran. Is Trump willing to give a little on Taiwan or maybe on AI? We don’t know, but both sides are convinced that they are the winning side, and that means limited room for concessions.
Bill Echikson
Chris.
Christopher Walker
I think this speaks to a larger asymmetry that democracies are facing vis-à-vis China, whose system itself has profound flaws and weaknesses. At the moment, we shouldn’t underestimate that economically, and otherwise, Jim Lewis just alluded to some of them. At the same time, democracies are facing economic challenges, economic uncertainties, and elections, including in the US. And so I think for the US side, it’s important to keep the top-order security questions in mind as some of the pressures of electoral cycles hit the US. And this will be something that we’ll all need to keep an eye on.
Bill Echikson
Reinhardt.
Reinhard Bütikofer
I would start from the point that, in China’s assessment, one of the core strengths of the benevolent hegemon that the US has been over the decades was its system of alliances, and one of the weaknesses that he is probably very happy about of the Trump administration is that this administration is systematically undermining or even tearing up the American system of alliances.
Bill Echikson
Sarah.
Sarah Cook
I would just say that I think it’s important that the US is not coming into here with zero leverage. Xi has his own problems domestically. I mean, Jim mentioned the purges of the military, but the Chinese economy is not doing great, and there’s a growing amount of economic-related dissent. Of course, the Public Security Bureau can crush a lot of that, but Freedom House, where I used to work alongside Chris, has this great China dissent monitor, where they’ve tracked like 14,000 incidents of dissent since 2022. The number in 2025 was quite a bit higher than 2024, including the last quarter of 2025, so I think you do have a situation where Xi also has to be worried about the economy itself. The other last thing I’ll note, which I think hasn’t gotten as much attention as it should, is that Marco Rubio is going on this trip. For those who recall, China sanctioned him in 2020 because of his work on Taiwan and on the genocide in Xinjiang, and they have had to reverse these sanctions imposed on a former member of Congress whom they do not like. I mean, he was one of the most vocal, eloquent, and strategic members of Congress and of the Senate when it came to human rights in China, and so they had to concede for this summit, to move forward, to give him a visa, and to let him in. That may seem small, and it’s part of the protocol and things like that, but I still feel like even on that level, that’s a bit of a win and shows some of the leverage that the US can have to get the Chinese to retreat on something that’s at least adjacent to human rights and CCP influence.
Jim Lewis
Bill, maybe a quick point on alliances to follow up. I think that’s right on Rubio, but the alliance is more than NATO, and the Chinese have done a spectacular job of remilitarizing Japan, and it makes them crazy. So we have more than one ally in the world, and I think the alliance with Japan is probably the one that worries the Chinese the most.
Bill Echikson
Okay, now we have a question from Francis Capper, from the National Defense Reporter at The Daily Caller News Foundation, about the tie between the Middle East and the summit. Do you think that President Trump could offer to open the Strait of Hormuz for concessions from China regarding Taiwan? Why or why not? What would this mean for Europe, the Middle East, and the United States? I think the question means that, would China be able to help him open the Strait of Hormuz in return for concessions from Taiwan? Anyone want to take that?
Sarah Cook
I would just be very wary of any promises coming from the Chinese regime. I mean, I think he can push them. I would just be really careful about making any real-world concessions for some kind of promise, because we’ve just seen it again and again. I mean, just look at Hong Kong, trying to promise to let them have until 2047, and they jumped the gun on that deadline, right? So I think Trump should put pressure. Obviously, it’s in the Chinese interest, economically, to have the Strait open and get more of the oil that they need. So I think that’s where there could be leverage. I would be very careful about making concessions, really, on anything for a promise that they’re going to whisper in the ears of their friends in Iran. Because, don’t forget, it was China who also helped Iran rebuild after the bombing campaign last year as well.
Reinhard Bütikofer
If I may add to that, Bill, some of the questions seem to imply that the basic setup of this upcoming negotiation between Xi and Trump will be whether the US can get whatever and throw Taiwan under the bus just a little bit in order to get it. I’m not sure that this is a sound assumption, because whatever Trump is going to do on Taiwan will be of structural consequence if he changes the language that the Chinese are pushing for, saying that the US should go one step beyond saying we’re not in favor of Taiwanese independence, and should, from now on, say we’re opposed to Taiwanese independence. That would also run counter to the assurances that Reagan made 44 years ago, and that would be of very dire consequence. So I don’t think that the American administration is going to be dumb enough to throw Taiwan under the bus just a little bit for an empty promise from China. If the Chinese want the Americans to open the Strait of Hormuz, why don’t they stop sharing intelligence with Iran? Why don’t they stop sharing drone parts with Iran? That would be an adequate deal.
Bill Echikson
Thank you. The next question comes from Kenya, from Eliud Kibii. Washington has repeatedly accused Beijing of overcapacity. Is this a legitimate concern or actually a protectionist approach? And secondly, we’re seeing cutthroat competition for resources, particularly minerals in Africa. Between the two powers, how do African countries ensure that they get the best bargain from this race? Anyone about critical minerals and Chinese investment?
Reinhard Bütikofer
I would offer a proposal. Countries that are rich in rare earth minerals are mining those rare earth minerals and then shipping them to China. They’re being processed in China. China has a quasi-monopoly on processing. And then, if Europe or America behaves well in the Chinese view, then maybe we get some. Why can’t we team up with these countries in Africa by helping them to build some processing capacity of their own, and as a benefit that we would derive from that would be that we have access to sourcing that China doesn’t control. So that would give these countries, industrially, a leg up and would give us more supply security. That could be a good deal that China has not offered so far.
Jim Lewis
The Chinese system creates overcapacity. Let’s take cars as an example. Right now, China makes more cars than the annual demand of the entire world, right? You don’t need Japan, you don’t need Germany, you don’t need the United States or any other country to make cars. China makes them all. And this is because the provincial-level governments in China subsidize manufacturing. There’s intense competition within China that is making the profit margins for these companies negligible or non-existent, and they’re, of course, bailed out by the provinces, which go into debt. So China has a machine that focuses on overcapacity, and they know it’s a problem. I think that gets to some of the earlier discussion we had, but there’s no way to control it. They’re not going to make a deal. The WTO probably won’t be able to deal with this until there’s a much more dramatic discussion. But overcapacity is the case in China because its system focuses on overcapacity for exports. It’s not made up for protectionism.
Bill Echikson
Yeah, anyone else about China’s influence? Sarah, because there was an interesting incident, I’m sure you can talk about it, in Zambia with China.
Sarah Cook
I think that in the resources and the investment questions, the rule of law and transparency can go a long way. And those are not China’s strengths, or the companies that are going in there investing, and there is a lot of demand, especially in countries like Kenya that are more democratic, that have a strong civil society, that have journalists to have some of that information. And I think that obviously benefits the people of the country in terms of limiting corruption and things like that. So I think that’s just whether it’s not so much trying to play each side off of its own, but really creating a system that allows an open public debate on what the benefits of one side or the other are. So I think that’s one starting point. I think also the other is that we did just see an incident in Zambia where they were going to be hosting RightsCon, which is one of the largest internet regulation, freedom, and civil society conferences. And a few days before, the Zambian government announced that they were canceling or postponing it. Then it turns out that actually what had happened was that a few days had passed, not long before they had signed an economic agreement with the Chinese, and the Chinese expressed concern about the fact that there were Taiwanese civil society members coming to this event. And I think what stands out with this event is that I think a lot of times people say, “Well, the Chinese, they only want to censor Taiwan, Tibet, the Uyghurs, the Falun Gong. Those are marginal issues. It doesn’t really matter to the rest of us.” This really showed that that’s not the case. It’s so much money; thousands of people participating in all kinds of issues that are related to digital freedom, that are important economically, in terms of human rights, in terms of internet and technological development, and it just got canceled like that. Why? Because there were a handful of Taiwanese who were supposed to come, and the Chinese didn’t want them, and the Zambians didn’t want to push back against the Chinese. So I think that’s really an example of where you see this transnational censorship getting wider and affecting a much wider array of topics and issues than just what might be perceived as kind of marginal Chinese domestic issues.
Bill Echikson
Thanks, Sarah. Chris.
Christopher Walker
Maybe just one other observation on this. I think the pattern over a period of time, in China’s case, overseas, this is now at least a decade and a half, is that predatory economics is accompanied by the sort of censorship and sharp power that is integral to China’s engagement, and in Kenya’s case, for example, the secrecy around the standard gage railroad and other such projects, which doesn’t permit political opposition or civil society to know what’s actually a part of these deals that is the standard globally, with China’s engagement in these aid and economic deals, the standard is secrecy. It’s only in the breach where you get openness or transparency, and I would argue that at scale now, that’s had huge repercussions for the way that governance is done in many countries where China engages.
Bill Echikson
Thanks. Next question we were going to go to something about tech, and it was about whether export controls on semiconductors in particular have meaningfully slowed China’s technological ambitions, or accelerated Beijing’s push for self-reliance. And I should note that it seems just before the summit that DeepSeek, China’s AI leader, had said that it had trained its new model for the first time on a locally produced Huawei semiconductor. So I think that offers part of the answer to self-reliance. But does anyone have an answer to whether the export controls have meaningfully slowed down the Chinese?
Jim Lewis
It depends on who you talk to. If you talk to Nvidia, they would say China is less than a year behind. A few months behind. If you talk to China hawks, they would say the Chinese are two years behind. The main effect of export controls, though, has been to encourage the Chinese to build their own capacity. And in some ways, our controls focus on the wrong thing. The way you get AI is not only by getting chips, which you can compensate for, but by getting access to the US services that provide AI; that’s a bigger export control problem. That’s the one that the White House has raised. So do they work? Probably not over the long term, but they’re kind of a feel-good for Congress. You can say, no chips. I don’t think it makes that much difference. In some ways, we’ve missed the opportunity here to stop the Chinese and make them reliant on the US. Xi doesn’t want to be reliant on the US, so they’ve put a lot of effort, a lot of money into building their own chip-making. In building their own AI models, they are behind, but that has more to do with American capabilities and export controls.
Sarah Cook
I would just add the issue, Jim kind of hinted at it, of the AI distillation. I would second what Jim said; it’s not just about the hardware. There are these softer elements and these industrial-scale campaigns that multiple US companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have said that they’ve detected, and now the White House has raised about tens of thousands of accounts querying Claude to figure out how to jailbreak it and figure out how to replicate it, and DeepSeek has come up multiple times. And so I think if there is any discussion of AI skipping that or ignoring that in order to talk about cooperation of AI, again, I think it’s strategically unwise, because you’re going to come in with much more leverage if you say, “Look, we know what you’re doing. We don’t mind competing with you fair and square. Let that be market competition.” But you have companies that are manipulating the system and may even violate Chinese law. I don’t know. I’m not an expert in that area of Chinese law, but they always like to say that we stop these things. So going in and saying and acknowledging that and saying, “What are you going to do about that?” Of course, they’re going to deny, but still, just the fact that you say we know can bring some leverage and some sense of, you can’t just pull the wool over our eyes. The other thing I would say is I don’t know whether the US is going to supply the AI chips to China, and we’re going to get rich, and maybe that’s what Nvidia still wants. But I think that’s actually secondary, because maybe that ship has sailed, and Xi is not going to let major US chips into the infrastructure. But what about the rest of the world? If you look at some of the things that have come out in the last couple of months, DeepSeek, Alibaba, and some of these other Chinese models are really gaining traction globally, and they embed a variety of different manipulated censorship, again, not only on the typically censored topics in China, those are obviously the most extreme, but on the United States, on politics, on politics in these countries, on politics in Kenya. And so I think that’s really a little bit more of a longer-term strategic vision of how to compete there, and whether there are ways of supporting certain types of open source models, or providing ways for people in lower-income countries, especially developers, to access these. Otherwise, what’s happening is basically censored, manipulated under Beijing’s control, and built on its distillation of USIP, are basically gaining a huge market share globally, and that has both economic and political implications.
Jim Lewis
Maybe the way to sum it up is, it’s a replay of the 5G competition, and the result of that was the US got the revenue, the Chinese got the market share. And so that’s probably what will happen here.
Bill Echikson
Okay, two questions from Chloe Craft from The Scope. The first one is acknowledging that Beijing is unlikely to support Washington over Iran, so how will they talk? How do you expect the Chinese to talk about Iran during the summit, and whether they would be hoping the US, I guess, fails, and therefore they could win from this conflict? Or do you expect that they’ll just avoid the issue as best as possible? And then a general question, maybe, as we go on, what do you feel that the media has been missing in the US-China coverage that should be addressed around the summit? So let’s start with the first one about Iran. Does anyone have a new thought on how China is going to manage the subject of Iran at the summit? I think we did cover that a little bit in the previous questions, but does anyone have any other news or ideas about what China would be willing to do on Iran and how much they’d be able to pull back from Iran?
Christopher Walker
My guess is, unless the leadership in Beijing is really feeling pressure, say, on their hydrocarbons, and they have very considerable reserves or such things or economic pain that would exceed their ability to control or repress domestically, they would see this as leverage to use against the US and to see the US be more distracted, which is also part of its approach in Ukraine.
Bill Echikson
Thanks. And any other issues that you think should be covered around the US-China relationship?
Christopher Walker
I would make a general observation here. I think somehow in the recent past, we’ve slowly drifted away from the idea that we’re in a competition with China as well as its constellation of like-minded regimes, and it’s transformed into a more nebulous discussion about trade and deals and kind of boutique issues, but at a top level, this is inarguably still a competition. It’s a competition about the way the world will be ordered. It’s a competition about whose governance vision will set the standard globally, and it’s still taking shape, and unless the US and its like-minded allies are willing and focused on competing and engaging on this level, we’re destined to lose ground. And so I would encourage more focus on the competition and dimension of what we’re facing right now.
Sarah Cook
I would just say two thoughts. One, just connecting the dots of who’s there on the Chinese side and what else they’ve done, because I remember that not that long ago, there was a meeting with the Minister of the Public Security Bureau, and he was going to be there to talk about fentanyl, but this is the Minister of the Public Security Bureau. They’re exactly the same people who are running these agents who are co-opting the mayor of Arcadia, and so I think a lot of this is in the public domain. Whether it’s for me to remind readers or put that context on there, it’s about abuses inside China, but so much of this is increasingly transnational. I think the other thing, and this may also go to the US official press, is that the Chinese like to really gain the upper hand in these summits, and put out the transcript first, and there, if you read the Chinese version, it’s not going to be the same as the English. I really hope the US is on top of it to beat them to it in a very nitty-gritty competition for narratives and maybe accuracy. I think sometimes it’s not just narratives, but they’re going to play that game. They’re going to broadcast it everywhere. I think the US can be on top of its game and be good. The last thing I would say is, I think again, not just any political prisoners, but those with family in the United States, it’d be great to see a feature interviewing some of these people who maybe don’t always get attention; can you raise the case of my mother, my sister, or things like that? I think there’s a real human story to be told there, and it really does protect people in China.
Jim Lewis
One thing we can count on is that President Trump will do a tweet from the airplane ride back, and the tweet will say that this was a big success, that Xi is a close friend, and they got a lot of good outcomes. So we may not put out the formal release before the Chinese, but I bet the tweet beats it.
Reinhard Bütikofer
I would like to add three specific topics where I would hope to see more coverage in the future. One being Tibet, where the Chinese are trying to destroy Tibetan culture, much more radically than in the past, where they alienate young children from their own culture. Second, Xinjiang, you have the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, but Uyghur forced labor is now being employed in other parts of China, like in the fishing industry in Eastern China, in Shandong Province. And the third topic is that the Chinese are exporting their governance practices. They’re building party schools in Africa to educate dictatorial regimes on how to be more successful in oppressing democracy. Those are topics that I rarely see covered.
Bill Echikson
Okay, thanks. There’s another question. I think this is for you, Reinhardt. As the Austrian Air Force continues to intercept US aircraft in its airspace, I didn’t know that was happening, but I guess the basic thrust of the question is, Europe isn’t really supporting the US and Iran. Will that impact how Trump approaches the summit in China?
Reinhard Bütikofer
Europe is not supporting the American war politically, but when you look at what happens in the German case, Rammstein is a base that the US is using very actively to support their own war effort in the Middle East. So Europeans are rhetorically much more critical than their practice would warrant. But on the other hand, I don’t think that this changes a lot for Trump’s approach to China; Trump didn’t like Europe even before we started criticizing his war in Iran. I don’t think that makes a difference.
Bill Echikson
Chris, anyone else have a comment on the US reaction to Europe’s lukewarm opposition to the war in Iran and how that would affect the summit?
Christopher Walker
I think the politics and the emotions around these issues have risen to the surface in ways that are at odds with all the parties’ info. Us in seeing an Iran that can’t exert its influence and power in ways that have been so corrosive globally, and hopefully, over time, we’ll settle back to a more direct focus on what matters to our natural allies.
Bill Echikson
Okay, thanks. We have about 10 minutes left, eight, nine minutes. If there are any other questions, please put them in. I think we’ve answered this one about India, but I’ll give it one more round, and then let everyone else finish up. Do Western policymakers now view India primarily as a balancing power against China, particularly in technology and supply chain diversification?
Jim Lewis
So I think in the past, the previous administration was much more eager to see India fill that role. I’m not sure this administration is that concerned about it. The thing to look at is market share. India has done a good job in the last 10 years in improving its capabilities, but they’re not yet at the top tier. You’d still look at the US, China, and Europe as the places you want to go; India will be there. I’m a little positive, because we have so many Indians in the US government now; it’s an amazing change. China doesn’t have any Indians in its government, so we will, long term, I think, have a closer relationship, but no one relies on India now.
Reinhard Bütikofer
From a European point of view, I could add that we just agreed on a free trade agreement with India that had been in the making for more than 15 years, more than 20 years, I think, and that is a big success. But this is not only to counter problems that we are faced with in our China relations. It’s also a fact that to open better trade relations with India for Europe is also a chance to offset some of the downsides of Trump’s trade policy vis-à-vis Europe.
Bill Echikson
Okay, why don’t we make one last tour de tabla? Any final thoughts? Jim, I’ll start with you.
Jim Lewis
In the United States, the Cold War took 40 years, and so we don’t want to think this is a tennis match where you have to follow the ball every time it goes over one side of the net or the other. Long-term trends are difficult for the US because of politics, and also difficult for Europe because of politics, but China has its own problems, and one of the successes that we need to watch for is that China is really good at putting out a very positive and somewhat false message about its successes. So stay tuned. We’ll see what we get. I think the big fear here is that Trump might inadvertently make some concessions that we don’t like, but he’s probably shrewd enough to avoid that.
Bill Echikson
Reinhardt, from Europe, any last thoughts?
Reinhard Bütikofer
One thought on Taiwan. One of the assurances of 1982, which I alluded to twice before, was that the US would not alter its position on Taiwan sovereignty. That was assurance number five. If Trump changes the language from saying we’re not to saying we oppose independence, then he violates that principle, because saying that the US would oppose independence would basically say that the US, for the first time, takes the position that Taiwan cannot decide for itself what its future should be. I think that would be a home run. It would even be a grand slam for Xi Jinping.
Bill Echikson
Thanks. Sarah.
Sarah Cook
I would just say that the United States’ relationship with China is not its relationship with Xi Jinping. He is extremely powerful. He is the paramount leader. But there are over a billion people in China, and there are many, many people who actually align with the United States and with Europe, on values, on the future they see for China, whether it’s lawyers or religious believers, people who are Christians, people who practice the Falun Gong meditation, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Buddhists, journalists, many of them are sitting in jail because they took major risks to share their voices. Some of them are students who had been outside of China, and said something online that Xi Jinping didn’t like, and went back to visit their parents, and got arrested. And so I would just second Jim’s point that there is a longer-term element here, and there are a lot of voices in China that the regime invests so much effort to quash. And so I think that’s another thing, to the extent that as people are writing stories about the summit, getting the perspective of a young Jin Lee, or asking somebody who was a former prisoners of conscience what they think or what they’re hearing from their friends in China, to the extent it’s safe for them to communicate and to share, really adds a different perspective and sends that message that the CCP does not equal China, which despite the regime’s efforts, there are a lot of Chinese people who still hold that position.
Bill Echikson
Good. Chris, some final words?
Christopher Walker
So maybe just channeling things that my co-speakers have mentioned over the course of the discussion, I think it’s very clear that Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have quite a clear vision for the future and how they would like to see the world organized. They are oppressive and a very transactional set of leaders. I think the competitive advantage that the United States has is precisely not in transactionalism. And so one of the ways to gain leverage is to use the natural advantages that democracies have to make the point that there are people sitting in prison who, by any measure, should not be, and that there are people in China who want to live in freedom, and this is one of the ways for the United States and these kinds of meetings to gain leverage. It’s both the right thing to do and the way to compete with the Chinese Communist Party in the PRC.
Bill Echikson
Okay, thank you, everyone. I think it’s been an interesting global conversation. Michael, I’ll pass it over to you for some final words.
Michael Newton
Thanks very much, Bill, and thanks very much to all of our experts for sharing their insights today, and for everyone for joining. I will be sending out an auto-generated transcript and a recording from this briefing later today. As you may have seen throughout the briefing, I’ve been putting links to relevant CEPA content and content from CEPA experts about this topic and related topics. Please feel free to visit the CEPA website, cepa.org, to learn more. I also wanted to flag for anyone who may be of interest, we will be launching a project, a publication about further Russia-China cooperation in connection with a series of long-form reports we published last year, early next month, so do stay tuned for that. And if you have any questions for these experts or any of our other fellows, please do not hesitate to email me at press@CEPA.org. Thank you very much for your time, and have a great day. Goodbye.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
