Xi Jinping’s Return to Washington: A State Visit to Build Stability

The September 24 state visit to Washington, D.C., by Chinese leader Chairman Xi Jinping reflects his desire, along with U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s, to relax tension and stabilize the world’s most important bilateral relationship. Chairman Xi was last in Washington during his 2015 state visit, and China will relish the optics of again being received with great pomp and ceremony at the White House. The visit is likely to be heavy on optics and symbolism but light on substantive progress, highlighting both leaders’ conviction that each is the only one who can manage the other and that regular meetings are necessary to stabilize the bilateral relationship.

Trump and Xi appear committed to continuing the effort to build a “constructive relationship of strategic stability,” largely because each wants to continue the “trade truce” agreed at their Busan meeting in October 2025 that exchanged U.S. commitment to refrain from new tariffs on China for Chinese commitment to allow rare earths and critical minerals to flow to U.S. and other consumers. Despite deep mistrust between officials in both countries, Xi wants continued stability to focus on China’s lagging economy, while President Trump wants to concentrate on the conflict with Iran as well as the upcoming midterm elections. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) sees the president as weaker than when he went to Beijing in May and hopes this will encourage him to work with Xi to build out Beijing’s vision of “constructive strategic stability.” The continuing conflict with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz without a plausible path to resolution has distracted Trump as well as hurt U.S. credibility globally, while growing friction with key U.S. allies and partners in Europe, Canada, and Northeast and Southeast Asia in the past four months has also weakened the U.S. hand. The PRC is watching closely the president’s declining popularity in the six weeks before the midterm elections and hopes that this will encourage him to avoid friction with Beijing.

Each leader sees time as on their country’s side. President Trump believes the coming years will see the United States take a commanding lead on AI, which will further strengthen the U.S. economy at a time when China’s economy continues to slow—despite, or perhaps because of, its successful marshalling of resources to develop advanced technology and manufacturing—and that efforts to break China’s stranglehold on rare earths and critical minerals will bear fruit. Chairman Xi sees the United States as being in accelerating decline, fed by domestic divisions and an international realignment driven by growing doubt about the United States, along with resentment of U.S. behavior ranging from weaponization of the dollar to military actions. Both may be right—or wrong—but this shared perspective has led to a much better U.S.-China relationship than almost anyone would have predicted a year ago.

Q1: What is the United States seeking to get from the visit?

A1: President Trump wants to highlight his personal relationship with Xi while showcasing the United States through extensive pomp and circumstance, matching what China offered during the May summit in Beijing. The United States wants further stability in the bilateral relationship; continued rare earth and critical minerals shipments; and further commitments to purchase U.S. agricultural commodities—such as soybeans, wheat, and beef—and aircraft and their engines. That said, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent rejected the PRC’s request for a two-year extension of the trade truce and reportedly offered only six months, reflecting the president’s instinct that China’s desire for a longer truce may create leverage for the United States. 

The United States would like to see agricultural purchases—particularly beef and soybeans—accelerated for this year, particularly in the coming weeks before the midterm elections. The president will also likely call for more PRC actions to combat the flow of fentanyl to the United States, building on successful efforts going back to 2023. President Trump will seek greater PRC support on Iran, ranging from commitments to cut off the flow of funds to the Iranian government to more explicit support to get Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the conflict on acceptable terms. He may also call on China to halt intelligence sharing with Iran (including by supposedly “private” Chinese entities), though Trump has pushed back on this in public despite some evidence that Chinese entities provided targeting information that led to the deaths of U.S. service members in Jordan.

The president will also likely raise North Korea, highlighting his unilateral announcement scaling back U.S.-Republic of Korea military exercises (which China has long called for) as well as his call for another meeting with Kim Jong-un. Trump will probably also discuss the Ukraine conflict, particularly the latest U.S. efforts to bring about a ceasefire, and will probably seek Xi’s support with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The president is also likely to seek release of U.S. citizens Min Zin and Chen Youlin, both of whom have been declared “wrongfully detained” by the State Department, and may also push for the release of jailed Hong Kong media owner Jimmy Lai, which he reportedly raised with Xi in May.

Q2: What is China seeking to gain from the visit?

A2: Xi’s top goal is to highlight China’s status as an equal to the United States while underscoring that his personal relationship with Donald Trump is the only way to maintain stability in the U.S.-China relationship. Showcasing Xi’s return to the White House after almost a decade of growing bilateral hostility and competition—which has been stabilized in large part by Beijing’s ability to punch back at Trump’s tariff moves—is a major win for the chairman. It will provide a lift going into the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Fifth Plenum in October, where the next slate of CCP leaders will be discussed. In addition to an extension of the trade truce, China will be seeking to get approval for $30 billion of low- or zero-tariff exports to the United States, which it believes was promised in May, and would also like signals that the White House will approve PRC investments into the United States, particularly in electric vehicles, batteries, renewable energy, and other technology. The PRC is also hoping for further relaxation of U.S. export controls, particularly on advanced chips and associated technologies, and may be open to a modest dialogue on AI provided it does not appear to lock in U.S. advantages and does not require China to share details of its AI efforts.

Xi is likely to continue to stress the importance of U.S. restraint on Taiwan while redoubling his surprisingly successful May efforts to persuade President Trump that Taiwan is the problem rather than China’s relentless increase of gray-zone pressure. The PRC likely recognizes that a formal change in U.S. policy is unlikely, but hopes that further Trump statements repeating Xi’s framing will demoralize Taiwan and isolate President William Lai while further pushing off both arms sales and Lai transits through the United States. Xi will offer to improve military-to-military communication and propose the resumption of an arms control dialogue suspended in 2024.

Xi will want to deflect suggestion of direct PRC pressure on Iran while urging Trump to end the war as quickly as possible in a way that reopens the Strait of Hormuz. He will also caution against sanctions on Chinese banks and other entities linked to trade with Iran, particularly oil purchases. China may caution that such pressure would lead to greater purchases on the global market, which would further drive up oil prices. Finally, always sensitive at how it is portrayed, Beijing is hoping for the Washington to highlight the positive in the relationship, including embracing improved people-to-people ties.

Q3: What is the Indo-Pacific watching?

A3: Indo-Pacific countries will be watching the optics as well as looking for outcomes and deliverables on trade, AI, technology controls, Taiwan, and PRC investment into the United States. After considerable worry at the possibility that U.S.-China hostility and competition would spill into conflict in the first nine months of the Trump administration, Indo-Pacific countries are now deeply worried that U.S.-China rapprochement will reduce their freedom of maneuver, hurt investment flows (particularly into Southeast Asia), and slow rebalancing of U.S. trade away from China. They also worry that U.S. desire for a good relationship with China and emphasis on avoiding war will encourage the PRC to redouble its increasingly aggressive pressure across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, and along the Line of Actual Control with India.

More broadly, Indo-Pacific allies and partners are deeply frustrated that they are bearing the economic consequences of the Iran conflict, which is undermining the perception of U.S. power that they have long seen as vital to maintaining security in the face of a rising and more aggressive China. Japan is frustrated that the United States has not provided more support in the face of increasing Chinese attacks on Prime Minister Takaichi and efforts to accuse Japan of rising militarism. While hoping for signs that China will help broker renewed engagement between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the Republic of Korea is worried that its interests will be ignored and that decisions critical to its security will be made in Beijing and Washington without consultation. India, having just hosted Xi’s first visit for the BRICS summit since the 2020 Galwan incident, worries that much improved U.S.-China ties leave it in a weaker strategic position vis-à-vis both China and Pakistan. Southeast Asian countries will be watching warily for any announcements on tariffs, as the current differential between them and China has declined significantly enough to reduce the impetus for multinational and Chinese firms to move production out of China.

Q4: What is Taiwan watching?

A4: Taiwan will also be watching the optics and ceremony to gauge the Trump-Xi relationship, as well as looking with deep concern at the agreements for fear that the United States will change its declaratory policy, particularly going from “does not support” to “opposes” Taiwan independence. Taiwan’s leaders and public will also be watching for any suggestion that the president made any commitments to Xi about Taiwan, particularly delaying arms sales and restricting transits of the United States (which happened once or twice a year prior to 2025) by Taiwan’s president. Either would go significantly further than Trump went in May. Taiwan will be more concerned about how Trump refers to the island, still smarting from his May interviews in which the president’s discussion of Taiwan closely mirrored Xi’s language, suggesting that Trump had accepted Chinese framing that Taiwan’s President Lai and the pursuit of independence was the problem that was forcing Beijing to respond.

Trump’s dismissive rejection of the Reagan-era “Six Assurances” and explicit statement that arms sales to Taiwan are a “negotiating chip” caused great worry, as does the sense that a growing number of Americans are coming out of the woodwork to parrot the PRC’s case that Taiwan is a strategic liability for the United States rather than a partner with shared values and a dominant position in high-end computer chips. Any linkage of improved U.S.-China military-to-military relations to continued delays in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan will also cause concern in Taipei. Conversely, any positive Trump reference to Taiwan as a democracy and critical trade partner, or a call for China to end its gray-zone pressure the island, will relieve leaders in Taipei. Nonetheless, Taiwanese officials believe that not seeing further erosion of the status quo is the best they can hope for.

Edgard D. Kagan is senior advisor and Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.