The Scoop
Trips by Western officials constitute about half of all diplomatic visits to China during Donald Trump’s second term so far, according to a Semafor analysis of Chinese government data.
That compares to only a quarter of visits during Trump’s first term and Joe Biden’s presidency.
The leaders of 12 distinct Western nations have visited China in the 13 months since Trump returned to office — compared to 19 in his entire first term.
The findings quantify a global shift — emphasized most recently by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to China this week and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s last month — in which Beijing is courting Washington’s traditional partners, nations now hedging between the superpowers.
For Beijing, the trips “send a powerful message… about China’s great-power status and America’s diminished reliability,” The Economist wrote.
Despite a host of underlying disputes, the bonhomie is a “material improvement” after years of “decoupling” talk.
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Semafor pulled every diplomatic announcement from the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2017 and analyzed only formally announced bilateral visits to China by a foreign leader or diplomat. The analysis excluded multilateral summits hosted in China, such as the Belt and Road Forum, where dozens of leaders may attend without receiving individual announcements.
The data shows a broad post-COVID surge in diplomacy in which China also looked to deepen bonds with the Global South as well as close allies.
In Trump’s second term, visits to China by the US’ Indo-Pacific allies in particular picked up.
In 2024, every Western head of state to visit China was European, but countries like Australia, South Korea, and Canada made trips in 2025 and this year, the data shows. China has looked to woo regional powers spurned by Washington’s protectionist turn.
In all, representatives from 144 distinct countries have visited China since 2017 — France tops the list with 13 visits from various senior officials.