The Sydney Morning Herald
· collected 2026-09-25 · by Michael Koziol, Lisa Visentin
The many American business and technology titans invited to the White House state dinner on Thursday night - Jeff Bezos, David Ellison and Jamie Dimon among them - mostly had each other for company.
asserted
titans → invite → company
It was one of the many signs that this summit was unlikely to elicit substantial outcomes - commercially at least - other than photographs.
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summit → elicit → photographs
That has largely proven to be true.
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That → prove → ?
Little change has emerged from the meetings so far, except for a two-month extension to the trade truce brokered last year in Busan (it now expires in January) and a renewed AI dialogue.
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it → emerge → January
US trade ambassador Jamieson Greer promised more announcements on Monday, while Donald Trump signalled good news for American farmers, though he has said that before.
He also continued his pitch to rebrand artificial intelligence as “super intelligence”, but there was no obvious outcome on AI regulation.
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He → promise → regulation
The White House had not provided an official readout at the time of writing.
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House → provide → writing
Evan Feigenbaum, vice president of studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a leading voice on Asia, said the affair was “long on performance, short on substance”.
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affair → lead → substance
But, he added, “that doesn’t mean there won’t be substance, because they’re going to meet two more times this year.
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they → add → ?
That’s really unprecedented.”
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That → ’ → ?
Having already met in Beijing in May, Trump and Xi are due to see each other again at the APEC summit in Shenzhen in November, and at the G20 in Miami before Christmas.
uncertain
Trump → meet → Christmas
Feigenbaum said one would ordinarily expect more tangible outcomes and co-operation from so much face-to-face time.
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one → say → time
The absence of this may mean they are still negotiating; the summit schedule gives them more time.
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schedule → mean → time
Or it could mean, as Feigenbaum intuits, that “neither side wants that much out of the relationship any more that’s realistic and workable”.
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side → mean → relationship
What they do get is an opportunity to cast US-Sino relations in their own terms.
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get → get → terms
He showered Xi and Madam Peng Liyuan with superlatives, and reiterated how great they get on.
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they → shower → superlatives
Showing off the White House, including the helipad and the forthcoming ballroom, was of great importance.
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Showing → show → importance
Xi was also complimentary but never missed an opportunity to reinforce Beijing’s geopolitical message.
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Xi → miss → message
Trump praised his visitors and thanked the media for its “fair coverage”.
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Trump → praise → coverage
Xi, meanwhile, made a short speech about “two people charting the course for the great ship of China-US relations”.
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Xi → make → relations
He repeated Beijing’s preferred framing of the relationship as one of “strategic stability”, and said the summit had added more substance to this notion - though how remained a mystery.
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summit → repeat → notion
He spoke of respect, fairness and reciprocity.
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He → speak → respect
Ryan Hass, a China scholar the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the contrast between the two leaders’ approaches was “pretty striking”.
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contrast → say → approaches
“For Trump, the pageantry appears to be the point,” he wrote on X. “The focus is on forging personal bonds with Xi and signalling that both leaders can keep competition under control.
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leaders → appear → control
Meanwhile, “Xi spoke mostly in terms of state-state relations and national power …
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Xi → speak → relations
[He] seemed bemused by Trump’s entertaining approach to hospitality.”
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He → seem → hospitality
While in Washington, the Chinese president repeatedly cast China and the US as two “major countries” who shouldered special responsibility to not just steer their own relationship, but to chart a course for the world.
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who → cast → world
Zhao Minghao, a professor of Sino-US relations at Shanghai’s Fudan University, said Beijing would be happy with the summit and the way it projected Xi as Trump’s equal, though it would have preferred a six-month or yearlong extension to the trade truce.
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it → say → truce
“If US–China summit meetings can help preserve channels and avoid a new shock, it is of great worth,” Zhao said.
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Zhao → help → worth
“Beijing measures success by process, symmetry and de-escalation, not by comprehensive agreements that were never expected.
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that → measure → agreements
While there was plenty of pomp, circumstance and goodwill, most of it was not broadcast to Americans.
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most → be → Americans
That’s because the five major TV networks - Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN - did not participate in the “pool” that films presidential events and distributes footage to other stations around the country.
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that → ’ → country
They had refused to take part in solidarity with CNN, which Trump had banned from the White House and the pool.
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Trump → refuse → House
The ban was fully lifted on Friday (Washington DC local time), and their participation resumed.
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participation → lift → Friday
But it meant reduced exposure of an event crafted with visuals front of mind.
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visuals → mean → mind
On Friday, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, splashed its front page with six photos of Xi’s US visit, featuring him being greeted by Trump on the tarmac, the red carpet welcome at the White House, and the two leaders shaking hands in the Oval Office.
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leaders → splash → Office
The optics matter immensely for the Chinese, says Dylan Loh, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
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Loh → matter → Singapore
“It allows Beijing to demonstrate to their domestic audiences - and really to the rest of the world - that they are the US’s peer,” says Loh.
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Loh → allow → world
“And to say: the US is giving us the respect that we have historically not necessarily gotten.
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we → say → that
We have arrived.”
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We → arrive → ?
Zhao said China now saw itself as a co-equal great power that could withstand US economic force, and had been surprised by how quickly Trump had shifted from extreme confrontation and tariff brinkmanship to accepting Beijing’s framework of “constructive strategic stability”.
uncertain
Trump → say → stability
…and 9 more, not listed.
The Aporia
