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Photographer: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
This Trump-Xi Summit Will Actually Matter
The Chinese leader knows what he wants next in the rivalry. Does the US president?
Great-power summits can bring high drama. The encounter between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961 previewed a terrifying showdown over West Berlin. The meeting between two of their successors, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986 raised and dashed hopes for nuclear disarmament.
The world watched as Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden met on the sidelines of the annual G20 summit in Bali in November 2022 to tame tensions that had flared during a summer crisis over Taiwan. Assuming it still happens, amid a tense conflict in the Persian Gulf, this week’s meeting between Xi and President Donald Trump will command global attention, too.