Mr. Xi Goes To Washington

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0:31This is 1A. I'm Jen White. China's President Xi Jinping is set to meet President Trump at the White House this Thursday. It will be the first state visit by a Chinese leader in 11 years. And it comes as worry spreads in the U.S. over AI security. Over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Chinese Vice President Xi Ha Lingfang ahead of the summit and came away with an announcement on how the two superpowers may deal with artificial intelligence. What we discussed was setting up a mechanism. So it's going to be called the U.S.-China AI Dialogue. We've agreed to meet again. The U.S.

1:11has proposed that we have a notification mechanism between the two countries, and we want a shared vision of common goals and common threats. But what would this mechanism look like in practice? And how will talks with Presidents Xi and Trump affect this growing AI arms race? AI is also not the only high-stakes item on the potential agenda. The two superpowers have engaged in a trade war, which at one point reached tariffs as high as 125 percent on both sides. Word attention stand on trade as key economic resources like rare earth products hang in the balance. And then there's Taiwan. In a February phone call between the two leaders, President Xi stressed, quote, the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S.

2:00relations. I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast. Stay with us. We'll be right back after this short break.

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3:16Welcome to the 1A podcast. Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump will meet at the White House on Thursday. Here to walk us through the planned visit is Jonathan Zinn. He's a fellow at the Brookings China Center. He's also a former senior China analyst at the CIA and director for Security Council in the Biden administration. You can also catch him as the co-host of the Beijing Brief podcast. John, thanks for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. And also with us, Henrietta Levin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She's also the former director for China at the White House National Security Council and was the deputy China coordinator at the U.S.

3:53State Department from 2024 to 2025. Henrietta, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. So let's start with AI, because over the weekend, again, there we heard Treasury Secretary Scott Besant talk about this AI mechanism. John, how are you interpreting this development? I am interpreting this, frankly, as a rehash of what we saw coming out of the last summit. When President Trump visited China back in May, they had agreed to set up this AI dialogue. But I think what's telling in the run-up to the summer is that this hasn't really materialized yet. And what happened in effect is that this mechanism got rolled up into Secretary Besson's conversations with Holi Fung.

4:30So it's a positive sign that they are talking about doing this and that there is going to be some notification mechanism in place in case there is some kind of incident. But we should be skeptical about how effective that is really going to be. We've had challenges in the U.S. government with other kinds of crisis communications or other kind of communications. The issue is not having one. It's whether anybody picks up the phone on the other side. Well, Henrietta, are you sensing any growing sense of urgency? We've seen President Trump say, you know, the warnings about AI as an existential threat are overblown.

5:00Meanwhile, experts within the tech sector are saying, actually, this is a real concern as they continue to develop the technology. So is there a growing sense of urgency around this issue? I think there is within certain corners of the U.S. government and probably certain corners of the Chinese government as well. But that's not enough to get to a consensus on such a difficult issue. And I think it's also worth thinking about what we just heard Secretary Besant say describing the outcome of these talks. So, you know, we want to get to a shared vision with China of common goals and common threats.

5:34And when we're talking about threats, that makes a lot of sense to me because I think both sides genuinely are worried about extreme downside risk of AI when it comes to economic security and jobs and also when it comes to, I mean, we've heard a lot this week about extinction possibility. But what I find a little harder to wrap my mind around is common goals because the Chinese government primarily wants AI to be safe for the rule of the Communist Party of China. That, I hope, is not a key American goal when it comes to the development of AI and the values we want this technology to embrace. And so I think that when you talk about AI dialogue with China in the spirit of arms control, like the way we talked to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, that makes sense.

6:25I think it's going to be hard. We're not there yet in a meaningful way, but I think we can get there. When we talk about common goals, that's a conversation we should be having with our allies that share our values. Well, and what are the realities of the differences in the regulatory environments between the two countries, John, that make this shared goal, shared threat framework a little more challenging? Yeah. I mean, I think on the U.S. side, the Trump administration, of course, has adopted a very laissez-faire attitude toward the development of AI. And we've seen that explicitly from President Trump just within the past week or so, right, where he says it doesn't need to be regulated.

7:00You just need a strong president. And I think even among those calling for greater regulation, there's fragmentation. There's not necessarily a clear consensus that's really crystallized here in Washington about what exactly should be done. I think on the Chinese side, there's a clearer view, right, in some ways, right? They are used to regulating the internet, as Henrietta was indicating. They've had a heavy hand. And I think from Beijing's perspective, the way they are seeing this is kind of a corollary or an outgrowth to how they've approached the internet since the start of the century, right?

7:29The first and primary concern is really about regime security and political security, right, rather than about loss of control. That's on their mind, but I don't think it's exploded and certainly not with the same kind of political resonance it has here in the United States. But they do have – I think part of why it hasn't is because in China, there's a greater sense that we've controlled things in the past. President Clinton famously said that trying to control the internet would be like nailing Jell-O to the wall, but the Chinese have done it. Well, here's Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun speaking last week about artificial intelligence.

8:03The development of artificial intelligence is crucial to the well-being of all humanity, and all parties should work together to promote an open and inclusive development of AI for good and for all. Fear-mongering, confrontation, and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance, which serves no one's interest. Now, several tech titans have been invited to attend the state dinner with President Trump and Xi. They include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. Henrietta, how does the presence of these tech titans shape the conversation around artificial intelligence and its future for both countries?

8:42Well, I think we have seen maybe more unsurprisingly a commercial focus from some of these tech leaders focused on selling what they can to who they can. And of course, China is a huge market and the market potential of Chinese consumers and companies have driven U.S.-China policy for many years, not always in maybe the best direction. And so I think you see a real tension here between voices within the Trump administration that are more worried about the national security implications of high-end U.S. technology fueling China's AI development and then perspectives from some but not all U.S. companies who are seeking commercial opportunities in China.

9:27And there is a tension there. I think it's interesting that we just heard from the Chinese spokesperson a very optimistic perspective on AI. And I think this is an interesting distinction as well because in the U.S., we often hear a much more morose perspective on the risks of AI in the public conversation. And I think there's two reasons for this that are worth discussing. The first is that Xi Jinping, the president of China, has really staked his whole model of government and economic growth on kind of a techno-optimist, techno-futurist vision. He thinks that investing with a lot of state money in innovation controlled by the Communist Party will basically solve all of China's problems.

10:17But also, the second part of this is you hear this vision of an open, collaborative approach. I mean, part of why China says that is because China's behind the United States, and they want to have access to every piece of high-end U.S. technology so they can use it to catch up and surpass the U.S., and if that were to happen, I think their rhetoric would change quite a bit. What do we know about public opinion in China over artificial intelligence? Is it clear? Never as much as we would like because in an authoritarian system, it's very difficult to get a real pulse of where people are. But I think it probably is true that overall there is more optimism when it comes to how AI will change people's lives in China, if only because change in the past few decades has generally been good for people's quality of life.

11:09But we are seeing now this moment in China where the economy is slowing down. There is much more worry among ordinary people about job loss, about wages being suppressed. We saw a court case recently in China where a worker who was fired because his job was made redundant due to AI sued his employer. This is not something that happens in China, right? Like you could – if this is something the government did not want to see, you would be in jail for doing it. So the fact that he did it and then won against his company means that the government is nervous that people are getting upset. And they're trying to step in to ensure more stability as this change driven by AI continues to race ahead.

11:54John, you recently wrote in The Atlantic about President Trump having a fundamental misunderstanding of President Xi's values. Explain that and how these two leaders' personalities could come into play while they're meeting. Yes. Well, in a sense, these two men could not be an otter couple and could not be more different for a variety of reasons. But I think for President Trump, he seems really focused, and we see this in the messaging from the Trump administration ahead of the summit, he's really focused on his personal rapport with Xi Jinping, right? And he's betting on that to advance U.S. interests.

12:26And what I argue in the piece is that the problem with that is that Xi Jinping is not very sentimental when it comes to personal relationships, right? And we just got evidence of this just in the last couple of days where the party formally purged a general named Zhang Yuxia who used to be the top commander of China's military and is somebody with whom Xi Jinping had a relationship going back not just to his childhood but their fathers had been comrades in arms together back in China's civil war. And he has been purged and publicly excoriated. This is how Xi Jinping treats somebody inside his inner circle, never mind the leader of his chief geopolitical rival.

13:01Now, in fairness to President Trump, I think that he is idiosyncratic in many ways. But this belief that he can power through this diplomacy with his own personal charisma, he's not really idiosyncratic in that, right? It's a difference in the two political systems and the two political cultures, right? I think most American leaders actually feel that way, right? Because our system depends on being able to campaign, being able to engage on social media. If you go through any legislature, it's about backflapping and glad-handing and having that facade of bonhomie in order to survive the political process.

13:33That kind of personal bridge building in the Chinese political system in many ways is punished, right? It's either considered building up your own faction inside the system. And if you do have that more freewheeling open style, it's duly punished. And the best example of this is actually Xi's father was a prominent official back in the 1980s. And the man he worked for was Hu Yaobang, one of the major reformers of the 1980s in China, right? And who was ultimately, you know, ousted because of that freewheeling public style. And so I think Xi has really internalized that view and that perspective.

14:08So when he's sitting down with Donald Trump and we saw this play out in the May meeting, yeah, Trump, you know, would kind of lavish praise on Xi Jinping and Xi would just look at him stone-faced, right? good, and it's a reflection of the real difference in the political cultures and upbringing. We got this email from Brian who says, the fear-mongering over China has always been hysterical nonsense. Just because the U.S. empire has always sought to dominate the rest of the world in a belligerent manner doesn't mean that China has the same goal. And I think there are two things there. One, whether or not the fear around China and its place in the global system, economically and otherwise, is overblown.

14:46But then also there's this question about China's goals in a meeting like this. And Rieta, your thoughts first. Well, I think two things can be bad at the same time. So I think that we should be clear-eyed about the very significant threat that China has decided to pose to the United States and our allies around the world. And China has decided to pre-position offensive cyber weapons within U.S. critical infrastructure. That's things like our water, our power grid. I mean, that's a problem. No one made them do that. China menaces U.S. allies across the Indo-Pacific and the South China Sea. China has responded to normal and successful democratic elections on Taiwan with extremely aggressive military exercises.

15:36And we'll talk more about Taiwan a little later. Escalating to a conflict. The U.S. also has not, I would say, especially of late, been making the best decisions in the world, menacing our allies as well. Honestly, in a way that I think has often benefited China's position. So going into this meeting in Washington between President Trump and President Xi, I think both sides feel very confident in their position, their ability to manage the other. John was talking about how President Trump really views himself as having a personal friendship with Xi Jinping that may not be quite reciprocated from the other side, but that leaves Trump feeling very confident.

16:19And I think President Trump feels like he was able to assert China as a peer of the United States on the world stage, if not perhaps a nation holding even stronger cards. If we think back to last year when China leveraged its choke point over rare earth materials, which we need in the U.S. and many other nations do as well to power much of our manufacturing. When China closed down access to those materials, the U.S. effectively responded by just ending the trade war almost overnight on China's terms. And so now we talk about stability in U.S.-China relations going into the meeting. Both sides want stability.

17:05No one wants to go back to what was effectively a trade embargo. But stability on whose terms is a big question. And China thinks they can get this done on their own terms in a way that further enhances China's power relative to the United States. John, briefly before we go to the break, what do you think about this question of fear-mongering around China? President Trump has made this a hallmark of his presidency. Yeah, and there has been some of that, but I don't think we should let that gloss over, as Henrietta indicated, the real challenges that are posed by China to U.S. interests, starting with the Indo-Pacific region in our own critical infrastructure, but I would say globally as well, and many of our allies and partners increasingly feel that pressure and that pain from China.

17:52Still to come, will she press Trump on the issue of Taiwan? And how does the ongoing war in Iran factor into the superpowers meeting? We'll be right back.

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18:47Listen to NPR's Code Switch podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from the Conservation Fund, protecting at-risk land before it's lost. The forests, farmland, open spaces, and places that wildlife call home. They believe conservation shouldn't be a choice between protecting nature and supporting people. It should advance both in harmony. With over 9 million acres protected across all 50 states, the Conservation Fund secures the irreplaceable lands people love. Learn more at conservationfund.org. Let's get back to our conversation about the upcoming summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump.

19:29We got this email from James in Nebraska who asks, will the press be covering the Xi-Trump meeting? Should they? So first, what's typical for this kind of summit between two world leaders? John? So what's typical for this is that you usually get wall-to-wall coverage, especially from the American press and from the international press, of course. And I think what listeners should be aware of is how closely this is choreographed and coordinated with the Chinese. You know, one of my friends and I used to joke this is like wedding planning, but with the worst in-laws you could possibly imagine, right?

20:03You're talking about negotiating over 15, 30-second increments to really get this right because there is so much attention to be paid. And not just people like Henrietta and myself, but others, I think, in the broader international community do parse what those leaders say in those meetings so closely and with such fine attention. What they say, but also the subtleties, right? And the subtleties, yes, right? And of their personal interactions, right? So especially on the Chinese side, there is a lot of thought that goes into that ahead of time because they recognize that, right? And they are also going to be looking to put their own spin on the ball very much from the get-go.

20:38And Henrietta, I know that James is alluding to this current battle that's playing out between the White House and the press. President Trump banned CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the White House grounds. That's led to this sort of retraction or contraction in coverage of the White House by the press, who say you cannot ban selective organizations from the White House because you don't like their coverage of your administration. But who benefits if the press isn't present at this major summit? So, look, I never want to be in a fair fight with China. When it comes to strategic competition, it is critical for the U.S.

21:21to draw on its asymmetric advantages. And first and foremost among them is our open society, our respect for human rights and our values. And so to the degree that the White House is backing away, especially now, right before this big meeting with China, backing away from our own respect for freedom of expression and freedom of the press, I think that is very problematic. It signals weakness. And let me just share an anecdote of how important that open press can be to how these summits play out. So you mentioned when we first started speaking that it's been 11 years since a Chinese president came to Washington.

22:01That Chinese president was also Xi Jinping. He has been around for a while. And so if we think back to 2015 when he was meeting with President Obama, Xi took questions from the press, not because he wanted to, but because we insisted on this is how we do things. And he got a question on China's building of new islands across the South China Sea, where China was dredging up huge amounts of sand from the ocean to build all of these little bases. And no one really knew why, but we were concerned it could be for military purposes. A journalist asked Xi, why are you doing this? And Xi Jinping responded apparently off the cuff saying China has no intention of militarizing these outposts in the South China Sea.

22:52Now, of course, right about immediately after that, you'll guess what China does. They militarize the outposts in the South China Sea. But because of that comment, the United States had a way to hold China accountable for their problematic behavior, for their aggression. I mean, as a diplomat with the State Department, I was talking about that for years. And so if you don't have open access for the press to these summits, you really lose a big part, not only of important American values, but of the substance, the diplomatic substance of what we can get done as well. And we'll learn more about what that press coverage will actually look like the closer we get to the summit.

23:31We got this email from Sandra who says, how will Trump's increasingly erratic behavior affect the conference with the Chinese leader? Trump has fired many of the experienced individuals who worked in the State Department. Who has been helping him prepare for this conference? Do they have the background to do so? John? So I think one of the things observing the Trump administration's handling of China policy is that Trump is really his own China desk officer. Even other characters from adjacent to his administration like Jared Kushner or Steve Woodcoff, they are nowhere near the China portfolio.

24:01So President Trump is very much personally driving this relationship and driving this more conciliatory approach. Now, in terms of his behavior, I think the fact that Xi Jinping is willing to come for this summit at all is a striking revelation about how in control he feels and how comfortable he feels in dealing with the United States. Keep in mind, President Trump has wanted this meeting with Xi Jinping since before inauguration day, and the Chinese side has been very loath to put Xi Jinping in this position, and especially after President Trump's very conspicuous blowup with Vladimir Zelensky from Ukraine last year.

24:37Woe on to the Chinese official who recommends stepping into the Oval Office with Trump after that moment. And so I think the fact that they're willing to come at all is a sign that Xi is not worried about something like that going off the rails. And what we've seen so far from the preparations is actually that Trump is positioned to give an even more ingratiating and over-the-top welcome to President Xi than what he received in Beijing with military flyovers and personally meeting him at the base. So it's really striking because in many ways it almost feels like President Trump is an anomaly within his own administration because there are others with a more hawkish perspective, not just across Washington but within his administration.