When China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Trump meet in Washington this week, the two men will be operating on vastly different clocks.
The American president is constrained by the immediate demands of a midterm election in November and a grinding war. The Chinese leader is gearing up for a norm-shattering fourth term as head of the ruling Communist Party, that will keep him in power for another five years.
For Mr. Xi, the disparity in political realities gives him an edge in maintaining the truce that the two countries reached last year. A renewed trade fight would hit American consumers right before the election — a risk Mr. Trump can ill afford. China’s economy is struggling too, but Mr. Xi answers to no electorate, giving him the patience to prolong the détente on his terms.
“Each of Xi’s face-to-face encounters with Trump in his second term would only have reinforced Xi’s prior conviction that Trump is leading an America that is dangerous but declining,” said Jonathan Czin, a researcher at the Brookings Institution who previously worked at the C.I.A. analyzing Chinese politics.
Mr. Xi, who will sit down for talks with Mr. Trump on Thursday, may be wagering that leaning into Mr. Trump’s preference for leader-to-leader diplomacy can insulate the relationship from flash points like the status of Taiwan, the self-governed island claimed by Beijing, and the competition to dominate artificial intelligence.
Keeping Mr. Trump at bay would give Mr. Xi breathing room to work on rejuvenating his listless economy, which has been weakened by a property crisis, high youth unemployment and excess production. It would give him time to rebuild the upper echelons of his military leadership, which he has hollowed out in a drive against corruption and disloyalty. And it would allow him to continue expanding his country’s industrial, technological and military strength for a future showdown with the United States.
