(BBC News) US President Donald Trump came away from his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping full of bombastic optimism.
He called it a “great success” and rated it 12, on a scale of 1 to 10. China was less enthusiastic. Beijing’s initial statement sounds like an instruction manual, with Xi urging teams on both sides to “follow up as soon as possible”.
Trump is after a deal that could happen “pretty soon”, while Beijing, it appears, wants to keep talking because it’s playing the long game.
There was a more detailed second Chinese statement that echoed what Trump had said on board Air Force One.
Among other things, the US would lower tariffs on Chinese imports, and China would suspend controls on the export of rare earths – critical minerals without which you cannot make smartphones, electric cars and, perhaps more crucially, military equipment.
There is no deal yet, and negotiators on both sides have already been talking for months to iron out the details. But Thursday’s agreement is still a breakthrough.
It steadies what has become a rocky relationship between the world’s two biggest economies and it assures global markets.
But it is only a temporary truce. It does not solve the differences at the heart of such a competitive relationship.
“The US and China are going in different directions,” says Kelly Ann Shaw, who was an economic adviser to Trump in his first term.
“It’s really about managing the breakup in a way that does a limited amount of damage, that preserves US interests, and I think from China’s perspective, preserves their own interests. But this is not a relationship that is necessarily going to improve dramatically anytime soon.”
