Pomp over progress in Xi’s US summit with Trump is a win for China

While US president hailed visit as ‘great’, almost nothing of substance was achieved on resolving thorny issues

Key takeaways from the Trump-Xi summit in Washington

If the Beijing meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in May was the “stalemate summit”, the second round of talks between the presidents of the US and China this week seemed to give up entirely on the idea of breakthroughs.

Instead, it was described as a celebration of “diplotainment” rather than diplomacy, where pomp prevailed over progress and where one of the main outcomes was the news that two giant pandas would soon be sent from China to Atlanta zoo.

Trump rolled out the red carpet for Xi’s arrival on Wednesday and broke with decades of precedent to meet the Chinese leader at Joint Base Andrews. Thus began a three-day state visit that involved a tour of Trump’s new helipad and the Marine One helicopter, and a 90-minute meeting that Trump described as “great” and that revealed, according to Trump, that Xi “has great interest in granite”.