De redactie van NRC selecteert de beste artikelen uit The Economist voor een breder perspectief op internationale politiek en economie.
Just avoiding a renewed clash will count as success.
Dit artikel komt uit The Economist
Long-suffering observers of Chinese-American relations have a plea: banish the term „grand bargain”. For a time, doe-eyed optimists and investors thought Donald Trump and Xi Jinping might overcome their countries’ rivalry to strike a major, even epochal, deal. They imagined a package involving some mix of balanced trade, real openings in the Chinese market and American military retrenchment in East Asia. When the two leaders meet in Beijing on May 14th and 15th, they will accomplish far less. All going well, they will prolong their countries’ tetchy trade truce—and that is about it.
Mr Trump’s mere presence in Beijing is a small victory. His summit with Mr Xi, initially planned for early April, was delayed because of the Iran war. But the White House and Mr Xi’s team were determined the summit happen, not least because it is meant to be the first of four meetings between the two men this year. Such a tight schedule cannot withstand further delay.
