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Prominent Chinese scholar signals optimism over Trump-Xi summit

Sep 8, 2026, 6:25pm EDT
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US President Donald Trump and President of China Xi Jinping
Kenny Holston/Pool via Reuters

One of Beijing’s top America experts wrote that the upcoming US-China summit offers a “rare opportunity” to put a floor under the countries’ relations, potentially signaling Beijing’s mindset ahead of the Washington meeting.

Whereas Beijing once rejected Washington’s framing of “strategic competition” with China, it is now more confident about managing that competition, Da Wei argued in a Foreign Affairs essay that was likely approved by Beijing, the CIA’s former China analysis head suggested.

Such pragmatism could clear a path for deals on trade and technology, though Morgan Stanley’s former chief economist tempered the optimism, arguing that major policy breakthroughs were unlikely given how past summits “generally produced little of great substance.”

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