US President, Donald Trump is expected to visit China this week.
The visit is coming about 10 years after his first visit to China in 2017.
China’s leader Xi Jinping will host his American counterpart in Beijing.
According to the itinerary, the reception, including a stop inside Zhongnanhai, the rarefied compound where China’s top leadership lives and works.
Donald Trump will be reminded of his last visit in 2017 – he was wooed hard, complete with dinner inside the Forbidden City, an honour no US president before him had received.
The agenda of the meeting between the two world powers, as expected, will include thorny issues like Iran, trade, technology and Taiwan.
Compared to Trump’s first visit in 2017, a lot has changed as China has become stronger and far more assertive.
Today, Washington acknowledges Beijing as “arguably the most powerful competitor that the United States has confronted in its history”.
As China and the US fight for technological supremacy, analysts believe there is a bigger concern at hand with the rise of AI.
Some fear that one bad actor with a laptop in a bunker anywhere could hack health services, or find nuclear launch codes, and argue that this is a moment for both leaders to think about the greater good, rather than the great power competition.
Competition will certainly dictate the agenda. China has already been doing all it can to ensure it does not rely on the US as its main trade partner.
China’s exports to the US have fallen by around 20% in the last few years and America is now China’s third-largest trade partner, behind South East Asia and the European Union.
The pageantry of Trump’s last visit did not prevent the US from imposing huge tariffs on Chinese goods and Beijing learned its lesson.
When the tariffs landed last year, China was the only country that did not back down. Whether the fragile trade truce will hold, or lead to a more substantive deal, is the big question for this week. But the last year has certainly emboldened Beijing.
For China, the win may lie in a smooth, well-choreographed state visit.
A trade deal would be a huge relief but even without that, a US presidential visit after nearly a decade is a morale booster to Xi’s message – that China is open for business and to the world.