There has been plenty to leave Donald Trump buoyant during his trip around Asia.
Formality, flattery and ego-stroking gifts have sat alongside genuine agreements to solidify trade, diversify supply chains and build on existing allegiances.
But for all of Trump’s gravitas, for all the sway he clearly holds in this region, much of what we have seen has, no doubt, been a form of response to another great power, another unignorable presence.
And that, of course, is China.
It’s been more than six years since Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have met in person. Tomorrow they will sit down together to attempt to iron out some of the disagreements that have plagued their relations and rocked the global economy since the early weeks of Trump’s presidency.
Managing this geopolitical relationship is far more complex than anything else he has engaged with this week, but it is the real metric of this trip’s success.
Trump will find a different Chinese leader to the one he last saw in 2019, with a different approach to negotiating with him.
Xi has learnt from experiences in Trump’s first term and has clearly made the strategic decision that a deal for a deal’s sake is not worth having.
This time, China has opted to match Trump’s playbook, matching strength with strength, unpredictability with unpredictability, maximum pressure with maximum pressure – and so far it’s been working for them.
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Xi has his own public to answer to and his own image as a strongman to protect. His stance of standing up to Trump – not yielding to the imposition of high tariffs, but instead matching them tit-for-tat, has been popular at home despite rates reaching as high as 145%, making trade all but impossible.
In short, China is coming to the table with a new sense of confidence – and it is one that Trump should not underestimate.
This confidence is based on a number of factors, including major technological breakthroughs and recent military expansion. The unveiling of DeepSeek is one such example – an open source AI product made for a fraction of the cost of Western alternatives.
But it also comes from the fact that China holds arguably the most powerful trump card in these negotiations, and that is the control of the rare earth industry.
Rare earths are the crucial metals used to develop everything from cars and semiconductors to AI and advanced weaponry. China has about 60% of the world’s supply, and controls about 90% of its processing.
China has been gradually increasing restrictions in response to Trump’s tariffs. It raised the stakes a few weeks ago, introducing a stringent new licensing system that requires Chinese government approval for the export of any product containing even trace of rare earths.
This system going into force, as it is scheduled to do in the coming days, would be disastrous for the US and will no doubt be central to negotiations.
Both teams have clearly worked hard to lay the groundwork for their leaders to agree, and it is quite possible that some form of ‘quick fix’ economic deal will be decided; there’s a sense that the current instability is pretty unpalatable to both sides. There may also be progress on issues like fentanyl and TikTok.
But a longer-term political understanding that reverses the recent spiral of distrust is unlikely, and there are still so many stumbling blocks – from deep-seated political differences over issues like Taiwan to a contrast of styles.
Trump likes to assume his force of character will get a deal over the line while Xi is process-driven and unlikely to sign off on something that hasn’t been ironed out in advance.
This all matters because the stakes are extremely high. As one source close to the Chinese government put it to me “the chances of armed conflict are not at zero”.
Achieving a degree of stabilisation will, of course, be welcomed in this region and around the world, but the chances of it holding feel thin.
