Explained | Why China is wary of a Trump-Xi summit

Beijing: In Washington, President Donald Trump has said he is willing to meet with Xi Jinping, China's top leader.

In Beijing, Chinese officials and experts agree that a meeting between the heads of state must precede any broad reset of relations with the United States amid Trump's aggressive approach to trade and foreign policy.

But arranging a meeting is already proving slow and difficult.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who came to Beijing in March as an informal representative of Trump, said one of the main goals for his trip was to lay the groundwork for a presidential summit. After meeting China's vice premier for economic policy, He Lifeng, Daines said in an interview that he believed a summit would be held by the end of the year -- a slower pace than many in Washington had expected.

On the Chinese side, Communist Party officials and government advisers said in interviews over the past week that they were taken aback by Trump's rapid-fire moves on tariffs, Greenland, Ukraine and other issues. They have been startled by his hostile treatment in public of foreign leaders like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine. As a result, they are cautious about scheduling a summit.

Tensions between Beijing and Washington could worsen this week, when a new set of Trump's tariffs is set to take effect in a potentially broad limit on trade.

Chinese officials are reluctant to schedule a summit until the two sides have negotiated details in advance, including a deal between the two countries that would endure for the rest of Trump's term. The Trump administration has not yet specified what an acceptable deal might be.

"The Chinese side believes the Trump administration has not really figured out what is the way to deal with China and make a deal," Wu Xinbo, the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said Friday.

"The Chinese side would like to wait for a more constructive and sensible signal from the administration," said Wu, who was part of an unofficial delegation of retired senior Chinese officials and academic advisers who met with US officials and experts in February in the United States.

Two other Chinese experts familiar with discussions between the United States and China mentioned the possibility of the two leaders meeting in New York City around the time of the United Nations General Assembly in September. But it remains unclear whether their governments can make enough progress by then, said the experts, who were not authorized to comment.

In a faxed reply to questions about the possible timing of a summit, the spokesperson's office at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had "no information to release at this time."

He, China's vice premier for economic policy, held a video call on Wednesday with Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative. He expressed concern about Trump's imposition of two rounds of 10% tariffs on Chinese goods so far this year, according to a Chinese statement after the meeting.

China has already retaliated against Trump's initial tariffs on Chinese goods by imposing extra tariffs on imports of American fossil fuels and agricultural products.

Daines' trip was only the second congressional visit to China in more than five years. While members of Congress usually travel in groups to foreign countries, no other senators or representatives chose to accompany Daines to Beijing.

China has not rewarded the American side for Daines' outreach. In an unannounced move March 16, China, the world's largest importer of beef, halted practically all imports of American beef. It had previously been buying $1 billion a year of American beef, much of it from Daines' state.

China granted five-year licenses in March 2020 to several hundred American slaughterhouses to export beef to China. That came after years of intermittent interruptions in shipments because of trade frictions and China's purported concerns over mad cow disease in the United States, although international animal health experts found the beef to be safe. China's own beef industry has also long opposed imports.

The recent expiration of the export licenses has in effect closed the Chinese market, with shipments plummeting to 54 tons in the week after the licenses expired, from about 2,000 tons a week.

China's decision not to renew the slaughterhouse licenses put pressure on Daines.

"The effects of this decision on US ranchers can hardly be overstated, which is why I raised this issue directly with Vice Premier He Lifeng," Daines said, adding that he was "calling on China to reverse this decision."

The spokesperson's office at China's Foreign Ministry said that it was "not aware" of the slaughterhouse license dispute.