Day: September 24, 2026

Xi got Trump’s red carpet welcome – but not everything he wanted

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The uncomfortable truth for Xi is that his domestic economy is in trouble. While the country sells a record number of goods around the world, consumers at home are holding back. Youth unemployment remains stubbornly high and property prices have slumped in a country where 80% of people own their own homes. Trade is helping to prop up growth, making access to overseas markets more important than ever. Xi needs to protect those exports from the kind of debilitating tariffs the US imposed last year. On Taiwan, Xi once again…

China’s Xi shares a rare laugh on White House tour at Trump’s Biden autopen joke

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Chinese President Xi Jinping broke into rare laughter as his US counterpart Donald Trump showed him a framed “autopen” displayed in place of the former American leader Joe Biden’s portrait during a White House tour. The viral moment stood out against the Chinese leader’s otherwise restrained demeanour during his first state visit to the United States in more than a decade. A video released by the White House on social media showed Trump taking Xi along the White House colonnade on Thursday before stopping at the “Presidential Walk of Fame”,…

Diplomacy or ‘diplotainment’? Key takeaways from the Trump-Xi summit in Washington

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1. Diplomacy or ‘diplotainment’? Senate Democrats criticised Trump’s summit with Xi, saying it prioritised pageantry over substance on the major issues. There was no sign a brief closed-door meeting yielded breakthroughs on the thorny issues of AI, trade, Taiwan and the war with Iran. Both countries agreed to extend until 10 January an agreement pausing their trade war, but experts said there were few other obvious tangible outcomes. Xi once again invoked the “Thucydides Trap”, an academic theory that competition between a rising power and an established one often results…

Why Trump gave Xi an ornate bald eagle statue at the state dinner

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Today, the practice of giving lavish gifts mostly exists in Gulf states and autocratic governments. “Autocracies like China give much more expensive gifts,” says Morten Skumsrud Anderson, who co-authored a study on diplomacy and gifts with Sending. In the West, Anderson says, the tradition has been watered down by democratic guardrails and restrictions. For example, the US Constitution has an emoluments clause that puts a dollar-value limit on gifts a president can receive from a foreign government. Currently, the limit is $525 (£397). Anything higher and it becomes federal property,…

Ivanka Trump takes front-row seat to welcome Xi in dress by Chinese designer Guo Pei

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The US president’s eldest daughter Ivanka Trump had a front-row seat at a White House welcome ceremony for President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan on Thursday, wearing a dress by Chinese fashion designer Guo Pei. Trump, in a robin’s egg blue dress and matching jacket, and her 15-year-old daughter Arabella Kushner occupied a prominent position at the ceremony, alongside Vice-President J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha Vance. The arrangement drew attention since members of Donald Trump’s cabinet – including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent…

China tested a handheld submarine detector. It tracked a subway train underground

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Chinese researchers have showed a handheld quantum magnetometer built for hunting submarines in a striking real-world test: it tracked a subway train rumbling beneath a city street. The device, developed by Peng Xinhua and colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China, is described in a study published on September 14 in Acta Physica Sinica. Though it is scarcely larger than a pencil and draws only 5 watts of power, it can isolate the magnetic disturbance caused by a moving train in the Earth’s vast background field, clearly…

The world’s two most powerful men just met. How did it go?

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The world’s two most powerful men – Xi Jinping and Donald Trump – have just met in Washington after days of pomp and pageantry. While there were many symbolic gestures, including Chinese pandas from President Xi, there were few big movements – although they committed to a two month extension of the tariff truce. The BBC’s China correspondent Laura Bicker unpacks how the trip panned out for Beijing and Washington. Read more on this story. BBC

How was dinner? Takeaways from Xi and Trump’s evening at the White House

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Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump addressed top American business executives and officials in the White House’s East Room on Thursday evening, ahead of a state dinner. The dinner capped a tightly scheduled day for the two leaders, who delivered speeches in the morning hailing close ties and urging deeper cooperation. During the day, Xi and Trump held their second face-to-face meeting this year – which Trump called a “great meeting” – touching on issues including Taiwan, the Middle East crisis and the Ukraine war. Trump then gave the Chinese…

Pat on the back? Xi and Trump’s body language speaks volumes

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Arm touches, laughs, and firm handshakes were on display as Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Donald Trump began their high-stakes summit in Washington, which has so far featured a rare airport welcome, military pageantry and closed-door bilateral talks. While the outcomes of the pair’s discussions are being closely watched, so are the exchanges between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies. A body language expert who reviewed the interactions said Trump’s gestures appeared to assert dominance, while Xi remained formal but comfortable. “You know, the president…