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The body language of US delegation members was evidence of their unease at the patronizing manner that Xi had while speaking to the US President. Each meeting was laden with the symbolism of the superiority of Chinese Communist culture over its US counterpart.
The sartorial choice of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on board Air Force 1 said it all. He wore the same type of fatigues that deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro wore when he was led in handcuffs to a US prison. Secretary of State Rubio was clearly and cleverly signalling that he was not among those eager to make the visit to China that President Trump was making. President Xi Jinping was absent at the Beijing airport at the receiving ceremony, which was heavy on military marches and pageantry. The military aspect throughout the Trump visit was evident. President Trump may not have heard of Thucydides, and therefore missed the point Xi was making about the US “not falling into the Thucydides trap”. It was that China was the rising power and the US the declining power, and should avoid war as a consequence of its decline. The body language of several members of the US delegation was evidence of their unease at the patronizing manner that Xi had while speaking to the US President. During the visit, Secretary Rubio made it clear that US policy on China and Taiwan stands, only to be contradicted by President Trump on the return journey from Beijing to Washington, when he told the US media delegation accompanying him that he “would make the determination about arms sales to Taiwan”. Time after time, Xi hammered home the point that any “unwise” policy (read support for Taiwan in standing up to the PRC) by the US “would lead to a military conflict”. Having seen the indecision and vacillation of Trump in the matter of Iran, Xi was convinced that the US President lacked the backbone to use kinetic force to repel any move by the PRC to in effect seize control over Taiwan. Each meeting was laden with the symbolism of the superiority of Chinese Communist culture over its US counterpart. The Leadership Compound in Zhongnanhai is the centrepoint of the control of the CCP over China. It was there that Trump was taken, with Xi having a smile on his face as he saw the condition of the responses of President Trump to his aggressive rhetoric.
In the mind of President Trump, the most important outcome of the visit was the agreement for China to buy Trump Mobile Phones. His son Eric was there, happy at the huge market that his father had made accessible to his company. Xi “agreed to buy 200 Boeing aircraft”, a triumphant Salesman-cum-President informed the US media delegation. Hardly a concession, because the state-controlled airline companies in China needed well over that number of US aircraft and would have bought it anyway, visit or no visit by Trump. Xi may have agreed to buy soybeans from the US or US beef, although this is not prominent in the reportage of the visit. Again items that the PRC needs, not an actual concession. It needs very little to imagine the thoughts of the Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, by publicly saying that Japan would back the Taiwanese in case of a war with China. Or the thoughts of the President of another US ally, South Korea. What will US voters think about the bathetic, pathetic spectacle of the Trump visit to the PRC? Many voted for Trump because they believed from his campaign speeches that he would stand up to Xi. Instead, he was stooping, both figuratively and literally. Across the world, there are lobbies committed to the interests of the PRC. The FBI has been working at speed to locate and apprehend them. Will it now raid the White House to question President Trump about his servile manner and his responding with honeyed words to the barely veiled barbs of Xi?
The fact is that the US is still the leader in technology, including in Artificial Intelligence. After the Trump visit, Xi will feel emboldened to make such lobbies work at speed gathering clandestine input designed to replicate and subsequently overtake the US lead in critical technologies. A matter having a distinct military dimension, given the reliance of militaries of the size of the US on such technologies. It was a game of poker where Xi bluffed about having several aces when in fact his hand is much weaker than that of the US side. The bluff was not just not called, but taken at face value, not a winning response in either war or poker.
In China, where there is considerable disquiet even among the CCP cadres about the effort by Xi to control every aspect of Chinese life, the Trump visit may have convinced many that it was futile to challenge Xi. And that it was futile to expect the US to come to the assistance of such dissidents rather than stand aside, the signal transmitted by the Trump visit. Even going to China was a strategic error, for it would be taken as evidence of weakness that it was the US President and not the CCP General Secretary who made the initial visit. The manner of Trump was reminiscent of the koutou that chieftains had to make before the Emperor. Wherever he went, Trump was shadowed not by the US Secret Service but by women, many dressed in red. Edgar Snow wrote about the “Red Star over China” when Mao Zedong took power in 1949 and drove out the KMT to Taiwan. After the visit, it appeared as though the Red Star was over not just China but the world. Given the backtracking by Trump of traditional US China policy, it was a worrisome sight to watch visuals of the visit on television. Chinese social media, that openly mocked Trump before the visit through the evident approval of the CCP censors, is now awash with posts about the way in which Trump played second fiddle to Xi throughout the visit. The President of the US is not just a dealmaker but the protector of the security and other interests of the US. Unfortunately, the dealmaking side took precedence over security and overall US interests.
Trump had mocked his predecessor Joe Biden for his (according to Candidate Trump) subservience to China. However, Biden never went to China during his stint in the White House. It was Trump who did so in 2017 and now in 2026. The fault for this vests with the fear of Republican lawmakers to challenge Trump, even though the US President is facing disapproval from not just almost the entirety of Democrats but a majority of Republican voters as well. Small wonder that it was a more confident Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi of Iran and more vitriolic Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov (among the best of diplomats in the world) were pouring scorn on the US during the BRICS Summit of Foreign Ministers in New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar were the perfect hosts. Almost immediately, PM Narendra Modi embarked on a multinational tour, his first stop being with a reliable friend of India, the UAE. The President of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed and his colleagues in the leadership echelons of the GCC must be dismayed at what took place during the Beijing visit of their presumed security anchor, the US represented by President Trump. In case Trump continues as President of the US into the November midterms, the issue before the voter would be President Trump. Most would signal their displeasure by voting against standard bearers of the Trump White House.
The US Constitution provides remedies for the incapacity or unwillingness for a President to do his job as an effective Commander-in-Chief. It may be noted that Vice-President J. D. Vance has been relatively silent about the Beijing visit of Trump. It is clear that a President Vance would have behaved very differently from President Trump. The sooner the White House regains its security and overall interests compass through a leadership change, the better for the US and its allies and partners around the world.
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