THE NEW YORK TIMES: In contrast to his rhetoric about China at home, President Trump spoke in conciliatory terms with Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader.
For President Trump, the first day of his visit to Beijing was all about the personal relationship between him and Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader.
“You’re a great leader,” he told his host, whom he has often said he admires for his “powerful” control over a nation of 1.4 billion people. “I say it to everybody.”
Mr. Xi, unsurprisingly, spent little time on flattery. Once the 21-gun salute and precision-marching by units of the People’s Liberation Army were finished, the disciplined Chinese leader plunged right away into setting boundaries for the two country’s relations. The red line was Taiwan, he said, making it abundantly clear that Mr. Trump’s effort at rapprochement could crash on takeoff if he interferes with China’s long-term effort to take control of the self-governing island.
“The U.S. must handle the Taiwan issue with utmost caution,” he said according to a readout from Xinhua, China’s official news agency. The warning came just minutes into his public remarks in the Great Hall of the People, the center of power for the People’s Republic starting just a decade into Mao’s revolution. For Mr. Xi, it was all about setting boundaries, from the start.
The moment seemed to capture the new equilibrium between the two adversaries. Mr. Xi arrived highly scripted, leaving no doubt that for all of China’s problems — deflation, depopulation, the bursting of the real estate bubble — the moment when China acts as a peer superpower had arrived. » | David E. Sanger | David E. Sanger has covered five American presidents and their encounters with China, a subject of his latest book. He reported from Beijing. | Thursday, May 14, 2026
