Single Combat: Trump, Xi, and the High-Stakes Summit

As President Trump and President Xi prepare for a closely watched Beijing summit, TAG Chairman and Co-Founder Kurt Campbell joins Host and Senior Advisor Mira Rapp-Hooper to break down why "modest" deliverables can still carry historic consequences. They discuss the likely outcomes — trade, Boeing purchases, and fentanyl precursors — alongside the real strategic risks: Taiwan signaling, semiconductor and AI policy shifts, and the possibility of rhetoric that will spook allies by implying a "G-2" arrangement. Campbell also unpacks why he thinks of the summit as "single combat" and offers a behind-the-scenes look at the choreography, preparation, and optics that can shape perceptions and outcomes.

What Comes Next with Mira Rapp-Hooper is produced by Rivan Dwiastono, executive produced by Lauren Dueck, with editorial input from Prashant Jha. It contains music by Cody Martin via Soundstripe. 

What Comes Next is a production of The Asia Group, and is powered by TAG AI, TAG's geopolitical decision engine for businesses.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I wouldn't be surprised that even senior members of the Trump administration are uncertain about what to expect when President Trump um touches down in Beijing.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I think from President President Trump's perspective, this trip is already a win, right? With President Trump now on his way to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, we have the perfect guest to help us understand what is about to unfold on the ground. Dr. Kurt Campbell is the co-founder and chairman of the Asia Group and was previously the Deputy Secretary of State and the Indo-Pacific Coordinator at the White House. Let's listen in. Kurt Campbell, thanks so much for joining me on What Comes Next?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

It's great to be with you again, Mira. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

We are headed into the week and vastly anticipating this long-awaited summit between President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China. And looking ahead to the summit, you have just published a wonderful article in foreign affairs that helps readers understand the stakes of this upcoming summit. And we'll talk a little bit more about that piece over the course of our conversation today. But I want to touch on the question as we begin on the stakes of this summit. On the one hand, in the lead up to the summit, the Chinese side and increasingly the Trump administration here in the United States have been signaling to observers that they should expect relatively modest outcomes from the summit in Beijing. You know, we're tracking here at the Asia Group things like agricultural purchase agreements, uh purchases of Boeing jets, efforts to curb fentanyl precursors. And as our colleague Brett Federley has said, these are really measures that kind of tidy up or wrap up the summit that took place in South Korea last fall. But not radical breakthrough items, really just sort of incremental progress in the US-China relationship. On the other hand, there is incredible anticipation around the summit and is perceived to be very high stakes. So high stakes, in fact, that you used in this recent foreign affairs piece a really evocative analogy of single combat, ancient warfare between two Titans. So why, if we're looking towards a summit whose outcomes are likely to be so modest, do the stakes feel so high?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Well, first of all, again, great to be with you. I I would simply say that President Trump, in most practices of diplomacy, uh, has broken with previous manners in which his predecessors undertook engagements with interlocutors. Diminishing expectations, however, is one of the rare instances in which the president appears to be following the traditional playbook, which is in advance of summits in the past, the efforts on both sides were always to downplay expectations. Now, this can be real or this can be simply a uh way of preparing for any outcome and being able to point to it as being successful. I I think the reason the summit is important is undeniably both men are uh seen as very powerful, the two most powerful countries in the world. Um the relationship is generally fraught. It stands at a crossroads, waiting to be defined fundamentally by both leaders. Um I think the um the expectations are for a number of deliverables along the lines that you laid out, which are basically just normal uh trade and sales. Uh the president is bringing with him a group of CEOs in which I think he wants to highlight elements of the bilateral economic and commercial relationship. I think the point that you and others have made, however, is will the president be tempted to venture into territorial territory that could be um quite profound in the US-China relationship, but perhaps in ways that he didn't understand or anticipate. And that involves primarily language or statements about Taiwan. We can get into that in a bit. But it's also possible that the president takes steps with respect to technology that yields on uh issues that I would consider to be of our strategic um advantage.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Well, I want to come back to both the Taiwan and the tech issue in just a moment. Um, as you say, I completely agree. Those are the key strategic issues potentially at stake. But before we dig in a little bit further, um, I'd love to pull the thread on this great new piece again you have in in foreign affairs, and in particular, an analogy you use throughout the piece of single combat, in particular uh between Hector and Achilles. Why is that the right analogy for the face-off, the posturing that President Trump and President Xi's.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Well, it's it's look, the uh the analogy is meant to sort of suggest very high stakes um in which two national champions basically stand off against each other as opposed to basically their armies laying siege, and then outcomes are determined by who bests the other. Um in the Hector Achilles, remember, at the end of that individual brutal struggle, it is Achilles that drags Hector behind him, behind his chariot, and Troy is lost, then even with an army prepared to defend it. Um and so I'm struck that the steps that the president could take, or even President Xi, could have vast consequences in the US-China relationship going forward. I've always been intrigued by the idea of single combat. You might recall, Mira, in Tom Wright, um, the uh novel about the astronauts the right stuff. There is a reference to how the you know, the publics in both then Soviet Union and the United States looked at our Mercury and then later astronauts as basically individual warriors in this um intense ideological and strategic struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States, which was then taken to the heavens. And so I've always been sort of intrigued by the concept, um, and I think it has been prevalent in a lot of civilizations. I think the hard thing um really to figure out from President Trump's perception is he going to um Beijing with the idea that it's a feather, a fellow authoritarian visiting and they're basically describing how to basically um uh sit astride Asia, or is President Trump deliberately trying to advance American strategic interests by seeking a breathing space or a period of harmony so that we can get our act together with respect to rare earths and the like? I think the truth is, Mira, is that there's contradictory evidence that points in two very different directions. Uh, I wouldn't be surprised that even senior members of the Trump administration are uncertain about what to expect when President Trump um touches down in Beijing.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

I want to come back to that in just a moment and completely agree that there's sort of a huge confidence interval around this trip. Um, but wanted to know also for our listeners, and because I think there actually is so much wrapped up in this analogy, I found this Hector Achilles single combat analogy particularly apt because of the trajectory that the US-China relationship has taken in recent years. When you were at the White House, you recognized very early on that the United States had to think very carefully about interactions specifically with Xi Jinping, because she had so consolidated his power over the Chinese system that to really get our messages heard and understood, and indeed to manage competition effectively, we were gonna have to do some careful leader-level diplomacy. So, on the one hand, that sort of points to Xi, right, as being the Chinese side of the single combat. But there's also no doubt that under the second Trump administration, personal diplomacy with the US president is absolutely critical. Um, that he treats personal relationships as absolutely critical, and that in many ways, it's sort of the short-term, more tactical nature of the relationship, often than what the country might describe as long-term strategic interests, or other members of the administration might describe as long-term strategic interests that seem to guide him. So, on both sides, there's this kind of unique predilection to personal diplomacy that I thought added quite a bit to your metaphor as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Thank you for that, uh, Mira. I I would say it is often said that um President Trump is the China desk officer. He's very deeply engaged in all elements of the US-China relationship. And he has largely either silenced or sidelined or generally ignored the China specialists to the extent there are very many in the administration. He makes many of those decisions by feel and by um, you know, based on his own experience more generally. I I think the key here, though, is that the Chinese have adapted Mira to Trump's preferences. Um, and that means going into meetings um, in some respects on the fly without the necessary preparations, at least from the Chinese perspective. My own experience of Chinese interlocutors is that before they're prepared to engage their leader, they want an enormous amount of preparation and um reassurance that this is going to go according to plan and their leader will not lose face or be put in an awkward set of circumstances. I think largely President Xi, because he is a confident leader, is prepared to set aside some of that really elaborate and lengthy preparations, uh set of preparations, um, uh knowing that President Trump will make decisions on the fly. And he must have a degree of confidence, given China's standing, his knowledge of President Trump, that he will be able to navigate effectively in such a meeting. And look, that's what we're gonna see over the course of the next couple of days.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

I want to come back to this question of the painstaking preparations that usually go into a US-China summit, and certainly one with Xi Jinping in just a moment, because I think it's it's fascinating and no one's seen more meetings with Xi up close than you. Um, but before I do, uh back to this question about how wide the confidence interval is around this meeting. Um, you know, we know that uh Secretaries Besson and Greer will be meeting with their counterpart, He Le Feng, uh, just a day before uh President Trump arrives in China, sort of suggests that they're still moving forward, some of the major initiatives, even as the president is getting set to travel, and that all sides are relatively comfortable with that, as you've said. But there's a set of issues in which I know our listeners and global observers are very focused, and I think we'll largely use as litmus tests for what has happened in this Trump Xi summit. One kind of on a high level is something that you've already teased out for us a bit. And that's the idea of the optics or the language at the summit seeming to suggest that the United States and China are entering into some kind of great power arrangement, a so-called G2 by which they would potentially seek to carve up Asia without allies necessarily being present. Now, I don't think we see any signs that the actual deliverables from this summit suggest a G2 like arrangement, but it is possible that language could gesture in that direction. And that would make um many friends in the region nervous. But you've also pointed to two specific policy areas, um, one of them being technology. Um, and in particular, I'd underscore um semiconductors, tools, and machining related to semiconductors. And then, of course, the broader ecosystem of artificial intelligence is a critical area where American allies and partners had gotten used to the United States trying to build a bit of a closed system and compete with China. Um, and where if we see sort of further laxity introduced into US policy, there would be some real concern. Um, and then perhaps more importantly than all these issues combined, the question of Taiwan and how US security assistance to and support for Taiwan gets treated over the course of this summit. Talk to me a little bit more about how you see this tech and Taiwan issue potentially playing out and why, in fact, they are such critical focus points for other countries in Asia.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Well, first of all, let me just say that some of the decisions around technology um, frankly, have already been taken. I I think the abiding belief in the Biden administration was that we had a few areas of narrow advantage to do with certain kinds of um uh lithography associated with semiconductor manufacturing, and that we had some AI chips that were more advanced than what China was able to uh produce domestically. I think over the course of the first year and a half in the Trump administration, the idea of restricting those capabilities as a matter of policy was rejected by the advisors uh to the president and the president himself. And so I think recently there have been steps taken that will make it much easier for China to basically buy um certain advanced AI chips, and there are deliberations around China being able to import uh certain capabilities that would advance their own ability to manufacture um uh semiconductors inside the country. Um ultimately the idea here uh is that um uh the president and his team, uh David Sachs, who had played a role as one of his key advisors, suggests that uh by providing these capabilities to China, we will basically addict China to our tech stack, and they will not be able to diversify uh over time. I think that's a profound misreading of where President Xi wants to take China. And I think in every strategic writing that I've seen of President Xi, a degree of tech mastery, a degree of being um uh less reliant on uh external supplies of chips is the most important policy step that China can and will take. And so I think the idea of some sort of addiction um in China to American technology is not going to happen. Uh ultimately, um I do believe that this is an arena of advantage, and most of the steps that were taken over the last several years to restrict this technology flow, those steps were bipartisan in nature. And so what we will be watching for in the next couple of days, Mira, as I tried to point out in my foreign affairs piece, is not only the cuss, thrust and parry of the two leaders, but what is the response of the audience to what they're seeing? And in this respect, perhaps the most important audience are Republican senators and congressmen who are probably uh privately anxious um uh about what might play out in Beijing.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

No more so than on both technology and on Taiwan issues.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, I didn't get to Taiwan, Mira, but I think ultimately, as you described, there are a series of statements and approaches that are well known to China hands and people who work on managing the US-China relationship. And I think there is some concern that President Trump will be prepared to basically um uh reinterpret or walk away from language that has long been utilized by American statesmen to symbolize a commitment to stability across the Taiwan Strait and deterrence. And I think the concern is by taking even small steps, the United States might inadvertently trigger a crisis in confidence in Taipei and maybe overconfidence in Beijing.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Very well said and captured. Um, and I'll note for our listeners' benefit that if you haven't had the chance to tune in to our episode from last week with Ling Ling Wei, um, we go into detail about the possible nature of the Taiwan concessions that President Xi could try to extract and why those concessions need not be particularly formal in nature for them to have a profound effect on Taiwan and Taiwan politics, particularly headed into their 2028 election. Um give that a listen if you haven't had a chance yet. Um, Kurt, I think you've covered the most important policy issues that are at stake in the summit, but I want to take us back to the question of orchestration and logistics. Um, you know, we spend literally countless hours uh together orchestrating summits for leaders from the Indo-Pacific at the White House. I did not have the privilege of working on any US China summits, but as I've already said, no one in the US government has had more meetings, been in more meetings uh with Xi Jinping than you have. Give us a bit of a sense of why traditionally the logistics, the orchestration, the protocol behind US China summits is so exacting. Why that is particularly true when it comes to Xi Jinping and Xi Jinping's China, and what it must be like for Chinese leaders and government officials to be preparing for such a high-stakes summit this week with a Trump administration that is prepared to do great power diplomacy on the fly.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Such a good question, um, Mira. I I will say the Chinese have a degree of comfort in that this is a home game for them. They are hosting President Trump, so they have an enormous amount of control over the logistics and the visual um elements of the meeting. When President Xi came to San Francisco for APEC and then the bilateral meeting with President uh Biden, I think there was probably more anxiety. The preparations are intense. They are usually conducted by senior security officials on both sides. Uh historically, in the U.S., it has been the National Security Advisor and then their Chinese counterpart, the state counselor, the foreign minister, or a combination of the two. Um this uh summit is different in that it has been largely orchestrated by three people, the most important of which is probably Secretary Besson, the Treasury Secretary. So um this sort of uh Treasury-centered approach has really only happened once before when Hank Paulson was Treasury Secretary many years ago. And even then the White House played an active and important role. I think he is quite dominant right now, Secretary Bessant, in the formulation and execution of strategy. President Trump, in many respects, as we've already described, is the desk officer, but also um Ambassador Purdue in Beijing plays an important role in establishing um the uh details associated. Associated with the upcoming visit. In these preparations, historically, the manner in which the diplomacy between the United States and China played out was that China, Chinese interlocutors always sought to make sure that, as the Chinese said, the ball is in your court, the ball is in our court. We had to be the ones responding. We had to be the ones taking the necessary steps, and then China would have an ability to respond to our initiative or idea. I don't know what it's like now. I assume that the U.S. side is coming with suggestions. There have been lots of discussions, not just about agricultural and Boeing sales, but also the possibility of setting up these two new informal institutions that might manage the economic and commercial relationship between the two sides, a board of trade and a board of investment. But there are mixed reports of whether anything is ready or not. And this gets merit to your last point that you described earlier. And that is look, the the two leaders might meet four times this year. And certainly the idea is that President Xi will come to the United States for a state visit. So there are lots of touch points to focus on. And we have to look at this as part of a framework of engagements.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Absolutely. To just dig in on some of the specific protocol questions for a moment, you know, we've seen reported over the course of many years in the past that on the Chinese side, Xi Jinping cares a great deal about where he stands in photos, where his hand lands in the handshake. And the Chinese team is often thinking about those details and preparing to execute for them weeks in advance.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

And Mare, just I'm so glad you raised this. You have no idea. You know, I often liken it, this part of it, almost to a wedding. You know, how many steps you take, who reaches out their hand, you know, how you place your feet. And so the amount of time focused on the first encounter is enormous. Who is standing, who is walking to who raises his hand first. In almost all these cases, um the um welcoming party seeks to be standing as the uh leader, the other leader walks, and then you're basically in that dominant position of basically welcoming um uh the other into the engagement. And so the the use of visual images to to basically um depict dominance and power, those things are um like on full display. President Trump tends to use handshakes and kind of body hugs and um uh his physical stature to dominate in summits. In some respects, President Xi uses distance and standing at a remove to indicate uh his own strong independent position. We're gonna have to see which leader is able to best um portray uh their dominance in these meetings. Don't put it past President Xi to basically orchestrate things, to wow President Trump with the pomp and circumstance, but also to maneuver him in such a way as to indicate that China's time has come.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

That's a fascinating description. Um, and all our listeners should be on the lookout as the pictures and video from the summit come out. In particular, I think this question of you know how President Trump uses his sort of traditional body language to try to dominate or assert and how she uses remove to demonstrate power. I think that's such a great distinction.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

One on this. We don't have a lot of recent experience to point to, but I will say the recent summit in Alaska might be instructive. So it was President Trump who who welcomed uh President Um Putin uh to Alaska. Putin was just grateful initially to be um uh out of diplomatic isolation, even though President Trump had positioned fighters and other things around Elmendorth Air Force Base up in Alaska. Um uh you know, the the initial encounter was designed to show President Trump's dominance uh and power in the relationship. But in some respects, President Putin didn't seem to care. Again, he was just being, you know, kind of welcomed back into the club of big leaders. But then after the meeting was over, it was undeniable that President Trump was disappointed, frustrated, and possibly um underwhelmed by what was accomplished. And so there was a kind of sheepish um maneuver to avoid the hard questions. Um the one good thing is that President Trump does not have a very good poker face. So at least I think as they emerge from their sessions, which are lengthy on the second day after the president arrives, sleeps overnight, we'll get a sense of whether President Trump himself is satisfied or not. And he's not one to hold back. And we saw that just most recently with his description of what the Iranians came back with in terms of a potential way to end the conflict in the Gulf as being quote quote totally unacceptable.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

That is both totally true and I think plays into President Trump's incentives to bill this meeting with Xi Jinping as a win. It's obviously been an incredibly rough couple of weeks, several weeks, a couple of months at this point.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

But you have to remember, Merritt, there are no losses in the Trump administration, only wins.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Oh, that's what I'm saying. So I think from President Trump's perspective, this trip is already a win, right? Being able to bill um, you know, even just large purchases agreements that might not even be at the level of status quo ante from the Liberation Day tariffs, but some Boeing purchases, some fentanyl restrictions, he has every incentive to sing this as a win, given the backdrop of Iran.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Completely agree with that. I I think um it gets harder to depict things as wins, uh, particularly what we've experienced most recently in Iran with gas prices going up on a daily basis, with allies and friends in the Gulf increasingly dissatisfied with the economic consequences in terms of shortages of petroleum, fertilizer, component pieces of plastic, helium. You go through all the different um uh critical elements of the global economy that flow through the Strait of or Moose? It's very hard to depict what has played out there as anything other than perhaps on some level a setback.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

That brings me to the last question I'd love to put to you, Kurt, today and what has been a fascinating conversation. As the summit wraps up in Beijing, how do you code in your head what are likely to be the upside and downside cases? What outcome and set of optics would have you kind of breathing a sigh of relief? What outcome and set of optics would leave you a bit on pins and perhaps a little anxious about where this relationship is headed?

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Well, I think we do know, Mirror, it's a great question that some of his advisors have suggested that's most important is the two leaders to sit down and compare um perspectives on the maintenance of peace and stability, where the bilateral relationship is going. There are lots of big issues to deal with energy flows, AI, you can go down the list. Um, I would be comfortable with that set of interactions. I think one starts to worry if, in fact, there are discussions about lifting or um somehow uh uh curtailing certain restrictions on AI capabilities. And if indeed uh President Trump is tempted to talk in using new language uh uh around Taiwan, those would cause anxieties for me more generally. And then I think any sense that the United States and China somehow have formed some new partnership that sits astride Asia will have very manifestly negative consequences for our allies and partners and will raise many questions about our traditional approach of the last 10 or 15 years, which places those partners at the very center of our um of our engagement in a region that is increasingly important for the 21st century.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Dr. Kurt Campbell, you've given us so much to think about and to watch for as this summit unfolds in Beijing.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

It's always a pleasure, Mira. Thank you very much. Great uh session. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

As I reflect on my incredibly rich conversation with Kurt, I'm struck by the fact that President Trump and the Trump administration are quite comfortable with relatively improvisational diplomacy, even at these very high levels and with high stakes, while President Xi Jinping and the Chinese side remain meticulously focused on the optics and the choreography of a summit like this one. As I watch the summit begin to unfold, I'll be looking to see how the Chinese president tries to use Mr. Trump's comfort with improvisational diplomacy to wrest advantage for himself and for the PRC. This episode of What Comes Next was produced by Rufon Dewey As to Know, executive produced by Lauren Dewick and with editorial input from Prashamp Jaw. It also contains music from Cody Martin via Soundstream. What Comes Next is a production of the Asia Group and is powered by Tag AI, Tag's geopolitical decision engine for business. We'll see you on the next episode.