Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s Washington summit has been billed as a discussion of major issues surrounding the development and possible regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as trying to find common ground over Taiwan and trade. What everyone wants to know is whether – and how – the leaders of the two biggest world powers can get over their rivalry through face-to-face diplomacy to achieve a positive outcome in what is surely the most urgent question facing global leadership.
The importance Beijing attaches to such encounters was underlined on September 17 when, in a call with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared that “head-of-state diplomacy is the anchor of China-US relations”.
