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For former US President Donald Trump, few experiences rankle more than being overshadowed – especially during a high-stakes appearance on one of the most prominent stages of his second presidential term: Beijing. While Trump’s inner circle has pushed back against the idea, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang did exactly that during Trump’s long-awaited trip this week, a reality that has not gone unnoticed by global financial markets.

As analysts predicted, the first visit by a sitting US president to Beijing in eight years delivered abundant ceremonial fanfare, but few tangible diplomatic breakthroughs. Chinese President Xi Jinping extended enough concessions to allow Trump to frame the trip as a success back in Washington, including agreements to explore cooperation to ease trade tensions and, critically, pursue an end to the ongoing war in Iran.

The real center of attention, however, was Trump’s delegation of more than 30 chief executives, whose combined companies hold a total market capitalization of roughly $20 trillion – a sum equivalent to China’s entire annual gross domestic product. This corporate entourage, assembled to push for greater access to the world’s second-largest economy, ultimately drew more global attention and interest than the summit’s headlining political leader, who has long craved the spotlight.

No corporate leader captured more attention than Huang, a last-minute addition to the delegation who joined the presidential delegation mid-journey, catching up to Air Force One at a refueling stop in Alaska. Huang’s late inclusion has been widely interpreted as a sign that the Trump administration is going to great lengths to accommodate Beijing, as the chip giant seeks regulatory approval to sell its cutting-edge H200 AI chips to Chinese buyers.

Amanda Hsiao, an analyst at Eurasia Group, notes that Huang’s last-minute participation makes a potential near-term announcement of Chinese approval for a first batch of H200 chip imports far more likely than previously expected – a shift that runs counter to earlier market projections.

This development carries major implications for the global AI boom that has pushed global stock markets to record all-time highs. For Trump’s Beijing trip, Huang’s progress could end up being the most durable achievement of the entire visit. A breakthrough on AI chip trade would be a landmark win for Nvidia, which is currently approaching an unprecedented $6 trillion market valuation.

While the summit produced preliminary talks of Boeing aircraft orders, increased Chinese purchases of US soybeans, and a reciprocal visit by Xi to Washington later this year, the most pressing high-stakes issues – including unfettered access to Chinese rare earth minerals, coordinated AI governance standards, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping – were deferred to future negotiations.

As former US Congressman Adam Kinzinger observed on his YouTube channel, Xi received Trump like a polite host entertaining a salesperson, and that particular salesperson appears to be returning to the US with very few concrete deals to show for the trip.

At this stage, global markets are in a holding pattern. It will be several months before it becomes clear whether the diverse delegation of tech, finance, and defense executives – which also includes Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, and the leaders of Boeing, Citi, and Goldman Sachs – will deliver tangible results from the meetings.

One major wild card is that Trump enters these negotiations with far less political and economic leverage than he anticipated at the start of 2026. Much of the outcome hinges on whether Trump’s increasingly unpredictable White House avoids disruptive new policies, such as additional sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods, an escalation of the Middle East conflict, or other sudden policy shifts that could roil global markets.

During his meeting with the US corporate delegation, Xi affirmed that China would continue opening its domestic economy to foreign investment. Trump described his bilateral talks with Xi as “great” and struck a broadly optimistic tone in public remarks, and the warm, welcoming visual of the summit has already provided a modest boost to global investor sentiment.

Beneath the positive optics, however, significant uncertainty remains. Xi issued a stark warning that mismanagement of the Taiwan question could lead to direct military confrontation, a statement that served as a clear wake-up call for geopolitical risk analysts. The moment also put Trump in an awkward position: standing alongside Xi, he declined to even respond to reporters’ questions about the Taiwan issue.

Economists are also grappling with the implications of Xi’s reference to the “Thucydides trap,” the theoretical risk that a rising power will inevitably go to war with an established ruling power, framing the dynamic between the world’s two largest economies, which together account for $53 trillion in annual GDP. Even as Xi acknowledged this historic risk, he called for building a “constructive, strategic and stable relationship” between the two global powers.

To be sure, the simple fact that the leaders of the US and China met face-to-face and held constructive dialogue this week is an unambiguous positive for the global economy. That milestone alone counts as a meaningful economic win after years of escalating tensions.

Yet what has been lost in much of the post-summit coverage is Trump’s defining policy goal across both of his presidential terms: forcing China into a sweeping “grand bargain” trade deal that would pressure Beijing to make deep structural economic concessions. After days of photo opportunities and diplomatic pleasantries in Beijing, that core goal appears more elusive than ever.

Carlos Casanova, an economist at Union Bancaire Privee, notes that a major diplomatic breakthrough remains improbable in the medium term. “More plausible are modest gestures, including calibrated moves toward a tariff truce in select categories and assurances on critical-materials access,” he explained.

As US-China working-level talks resume in the coming weeks, rare earths are a top candidate for a small-scale agreement. Chinese rare earth exports surged 197% year-over-year in April, up from just 3.3% growth in March, a trend that highlights both Washington’s dependence on Chinese supplies and Beijing’s gesture of goodwill ahead of the summit.

Casanova adds that a “mutual understanding to maintain a stable supply in exchange for restraint on punitive measures would be a logical, market-friendly outcome, especially given vast investments in artificial intelligence that have fueled the stellar performance of equity markets in the United States.”

Still, just as with unresolved tensions around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, global markets cannot ignore the underlying risks that remain after the 2025 trade escalation. China retains the ability to at any time restrict exports of rare earth minerals, which are critical inputs for electric vehicles, LED displays, lithium-ion batteries, military radar systems, semiconductors, and smartphones.

Beijing could also choose to deepen its strategic partnership with Iran, including ramping up crude oil purchases from Tehran, providing military equipment assistance, and expanding intelligence sharing. It could also cancel Boeing’s planned 200-plane order, or shift agricultural purchases back to Brazilian soybean suppliers.

As Trump returns to a White House grappling with internal disarray, his core MAGA base is unlikely to be impressed by the trip’s outcomes. Since taking office for his first term in 2017, Trump has repeatedly promised to force China into a subordinate trade position and demonstrate US dominance. The results so far tell a different story: China’s GDP has grown by $8 trillion since 2017, even amid years of escalating US tariffs and trade restrictions.

Despite US tariffs reaching as high as 145% on Chinese goods in 2025, China closed the year with a record $1.2 trillion annual trade surplus.

For Trump, the political calculus is clear: only a high-profile, transformative trade victory over China can justify the last 15 months of tariff volatility, elevated inflation, and economic disruption to his most loyal supporters. The current trip delivered nothing close to that.

The Iran war that Trump launched alongside Israel in late February further complicated his negotiating position in Beijing. The resulting surge in global oil prices, combined with ongoing inflation from tariffs, has left Trump’s national approval ratings at historic lows.

Now, he returns to Washington with little more than an agreement to continue talking about a potential framework for a future deal. In the aftermath, the Trump administration is likely to face critical headlines highlighting the gap between Trump’s bold pre-trip rhetoric and the minimal concrete progress achieved in Beijing.

Additionally, with Republicans facing midterm Congressional elections this November, the party is vulnerable to attacks that it has been too soft on China, given the deference the Trump administration showed to Xi’s inner circle during the summit. Trump also risks being boxed in by the diplomatic agreement he reached with Beijing.

Bill Bishop, a veteran China analyst who publishes the Sinocism newsletter, points out that Xi’s inner circle “wants a period of strategic detente and this concept could realize that on terms favorable to them for the rest of Trump’s second term.”

Bishop adds that “any future US moves to address PRC industrial overcapacity, tighten technology controls, etc. could then be cast by Beijing as violations of the new ‘constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability’ to which the two leaders personally agreed.”

While China faces significant domestic headwinds, including a persistent property sector crisis, Xi has leveraged the Trump era to position China as a more stable global economic partner open for foreign business. It will take time to determine whether this week’s Beijing summit marks another soft power victory for Xi’s economic governance model.

What is clear is that Xi will need to do more to convince American households, already grappling with persistent inflation, that China has not undercut US economic interests at home.

For decades, widespread misunderstanding of China has persisted across much of the Western world. Mainstream public discourse and media coverage too often fixate on a simplistic “China threat” framework, with critics routinely focusing on perceived flaws in China’s political system and debates over personal freedoms while overlooking how China has risen to become a global power capable of competing on the world stage alongside the United States. At the root of this persistent disconnect, experts argue, is a long-standing habit of filtering China’s actions through a strictly Western-centric lens that fails to capture the domestic context and framing of Chinese policy.

A striking example of this divergent interpretation can be seen in how upcoming summits between sitting U.S. presidents and Chinese leadership are covered: while Chinese audiences receive summit coverage framed around diplomatic cooperation and mutual respect, Western analysts often dissect every word from China’s leader for hidden agendas, coded threats, and veiled provocations. This narrow approach, however, leads many analysts to overlook the intentional rhetorical tools the Chinese government uses to explain and legitimize its actions to both domestic and global audiences.

A new collaborative research project led by scholars from the University of Sydney and France’s Gustave Eiffel University offers a fresh, innovative framework for unpacking China’s grand strategy: close analysis of the intentional political storytelling woven into top Chinese leadership’s major public addresses. This work fits into a growing body of modern scholarship that frames contemporary geopolitics as increasingly a contest of competing narratives, where global powers shape global and domestic perceptions through how they tell stories about themselves and other nations.

To conduct their analysis, the research team examined four key major speeches delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping between 2021 and 2023, treating each address as a structured narrative and dissecting its core plots, central characters, and linguistic choices to uncover the underlying strategic messaging behind the text.

Political storytelling is far from a modern innovation. As far back as ancient Athens and Rome, statesmen relied on deliberate, powerful rhetoric to persuade their audiences, with the philosopher Aristotle formalizing rhetoric’s three core persuasive pillars: logical argument (logos), emotional appeal (pathos), and speaker credibility (ethos). Modern rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke expanded this work, arguing that shared rhetoric builds collective purpose between leaders and their publics, but can also be used to draw dividing lines between in-groups and out-groups. Communications scholar Michael Kent later built on this foundation to identify 20 recurring “master plots” that storytellers across cultures and eras have used to craft compelling, persuasive narratives, including core arcs like quest, adventure, transformation, rivalry, and sacrifice.

Applying Kent’s master plot framework to Xi’s speeches, the research team identified five core recurring narrative arcs that consistently shape official Chinese strategic messaging:

First, the adventure plot. In Xi’s 2021 speech marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, he recounts how the Chinese people waged a courageous struggle to lift the nation from the peril of foreign occupation and internal collapse. This narrative frames China’s modern rise as a generations-long collective journey toward national strength and shared prosperity, marked by repeated setbacks and hard-won breakthroughs. It leans on shared national memories of hardship and endurance to build collective solidarity among domestic audiences.

Second, the quest plot. Xi’s addresses consistently frame China’s modern development as a collective quest toward the difficult, unprecedented goal of national rejuvenation, led exclusively by the Chinese Communist Party. In his 2022 report to the 20th National Party Congress, Xi emphasized that China’s path forward has no pre-written instruction manual or off-the-shelf template, framing the nation’s effort as an unprecedented historical undertaking. This narrative is designed to inspire unified national purpose, patriotic sentiment, and collective pride among domestic listeners.

Third, the transformation plot. In his 2023 address to the 14th National People’s Congress, Xi outlined China’s historic transformation from a nation humiliated by foreign interference to a country that has stood up, grown prosperous, and now emerged as a strong global power, framing national rejuvenation as an inevitable historical outcome. Unlike generic stories of change, this transformation narrative positions China’s rise as a natural, organic evolution built on decades of gradual reform and collective sacrifice by the Chinese people.

Fourth, the rivalry plot. This narrative centers on framing both internal and external threats to China’s stability and sovereignty. In two of the four speeches analyzed, Xi referenced ongoing efforts by foreign powers to “blackmail, contain, blockade, and exert maximum pressure on China,” drawing connections to the historical period of foreign domination that caused widespread suffering for the Chinese people. In the 100th anniversary CCP speech, Xi warned that any power that attempts to undermine China’s interests will “find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.” This narrative reinforces the message that China must remain united and vigilant against outside pressure.

Fifth, the narrative of collective and international goodwill. Unlike romantic love plots, this arc centers on the loyalty, dedication, and gratitude the Chinese leadership holds for supporters both at home and abroad. For example, in the 100th anniversary speech, Xi extended heartfelt thanks to global communities and individuals who have extended friendship to the Chinese people and supported China’s efforts in revolution, development, and reform.

This intentional narrative messaging carries powerful impact for domestic Chinese audiences. It is reinforced consistently across state media, popular cultural products, and national patriotic education curricula to reach the widest possible audience. The recurring contrast between past national hardship and modern national strength helps shape public perception of China as a peaceful but resolute global actor.

For international audiences, unpacking these narrative frameworks also offers critical insight into how China frames its own actions and anticipates its future policy responses. For example, China’s consistent narrative of historical humiliation and the centrality of defending national sovereignty helps explain the country’s uncompromising stance on the Taiwan issue, and reinforces the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic legitimacy on the question of territorial integrity. Importantly, the research team notes that this narrative framing does not predetermine that military conflict over Taiwan is inevitable: any future decision on the issue will depend on a wide range of strategic factors, including careful risk calculation, China’s deep economic interdependence with the global economy, and the catastrophic potential consequences for the entire region and its people.

Narrative analysis alone cannot fully predict or explain every Chinese policy choice, as complex strategic and economic calculations remain central to all major decisions. However, the framework offers a rare, clear window into the core strategic thinking of China’s top leadership – an insight that is particularly valuable for understanding policy direction in China’s political system.

The final stop of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s two-day Beijing visit was a rare guided tour of Zhongnanhai, the centuries-old heavily secured compound that houses China’s top leadership, with Chinese President Xi Jinping serving as his host. The high-profile excursion capped a trip defined by elaborate diplomatic pageantry, though concrete details of finalized policy agreements between the two global powers remained largely undisclosed.

Coming on the heels of escalating tensions over bilateral trade and tensions surrounding the Iran conflict, the summit saw both leaders adopt a notably conciliatory tone. Trump described his time in China as “incredible,” while Xi framed the meeting as a step forward in building a “new bilateral relationship.” During a stroll through the compound’s landscaped grounds, the pair stopped to admire blooming Chinese roses, and Xi promised to send cuttings of the flowers to Trump, a gesture the U.S. president welcomed enthusiastically.

Nestled just kilometers from central Beijing, the 14th-century Zhongnanhai compound holds a status equivalent to the White House in U.S. politics. Originally built as a secondary imperial retreat for Chinese emperors, the site is celebrated for its scenic lakes, sprawling manicured gardens, and centuries-old historic trees. It has served as the central headquarters of China’s Communist government since 1949, and today ranks among the country’s most politically symbolic landmarks. For foreign dignitaries, an invitation to tour the compound is widely interpreted as a marker of high honor and close bilateral ties.

When Trump asked how many foreign leaders had previously been granted access to the compound, Xi noted that such invitations remain “extremely rare.” Past visitors include Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who toured the site the previous year. Several U.S. presidents have also received invitations dating back decades: Richard Nixon during his groundbreaking 1972 visit, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all toured the compound during their time in office.

During the tour, Trump paused to admire what he called “the most beautiful roses anyone has ever seen” and mature ancient trees, which Xi confirmed were between 200 and 400 years old. When Trump expressed surprise at their longevity, Xi added that even older 1,000-year-old specimens can be found across China.

Hours before the Zhongnanhai walk, Fox News aired a pre-recorded exclusive interview with Trump, where he praised Xi as “warm” and “very sharp.” In the interview, Trump claimed Xi had pledged that China would not supply military weapons to Iran, though he added that Xi noted China would continue purchasing large volumes of Iranian crude oil and supported keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to global shipping.

While Chinese officials have not issued a formal public response to Trump’s specific claims, the country’s foreign ministry released a general statement confirming that Beijing has been working behind the scenes to facilitate an end to the Iran conflict, confirming that Chinese diplomats are pushing for Tehran to enter negotiations. As Iran’s largest crude oil buyer and biggest overall trade partner, China holds unique economic and political leverage over Tehran – a lever the Trump administration had hoped Beijing would use to advance its diplomatic goals ahead of the summit.

Though a fragile temporary trade truce was a core item on the summit agenda, the Iran issue had grown into a more pressing priority in the months leading up to the meeting. Even so, Trump told reporters that trade talks between the two sides had progressed “better than last time.” The U.S. delegation included a cohort of American business leaders, who Trump said were in Beijing to finalize commercial agreements and help create new jobs back in the United States.

Trump publicly claimed China had agreed to purchase U.S. crude oil, 200 new commercial jets from Boeing, and large volumes of U.S. agricultural products. However, when asked to confirm these deals during a press briefing later that day, China’s foreign ministry declined to comment on the specific agreements. Chinese officials have only referenced “a series of new consensuses” reached between the two leaders without elaborating on the content of any deals.

Independent policy analysts note that China’s global economic standing has expanded steadily in recent years, as Beijing has diversified its trade partnerships beyond the U.S. to insulate itself from the impact of U.S. tariffs. Trump’s visit came on the heels of high-profile trips by leaders from Britain, Canada, and Germany, all of whom traveled to Beijing to expand bilateral trade ties.

Following the conclusion of the Beijing summit, Trump extended an invitation to Xi to visit the White House for a second summit in September, a date that has already been added to the official diplomatic calendar. Closing out his visit after the Zhongnanhai tour, Trump told reporters: “You’re gonna walk away hopefully very impressed, like I’m very impressed with China.”

CANBERRA, Australia — Australian authorities have formally designated the notorious neo-Nazi network once known as the National Socialist Network, sometimes operating under the alias White Australia, as the second hate group outlawed under the nation’s landmark new legislation targeting extremist organizations that promote racial and religious hatred.

The designation, announced Friday by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, brings the long-targeted white supremacist network into legal prohibition, with the ban set to enter into force by the end of the same day. The new law, passed by parliament in January 2024, was a direct policy response to a deadly antisemitic attack that left 15 people dead at a Hanukkah gathering on Sydney’s Bondi Beach in December 2023, an act of violence that shocked the nation and spurred urgent legislative action to curtail rising extremism.

Burke emphasized that the group’s attempt to rebrand itself after announcing a voluntary disbandment in January did not erase its extremist character. Even after changing its name, the organization retained its structure and continued to engage in radical, hateful activity that meets the legal threshold for a ban under the new legislation, Burke told reporters in Canberra. “None of this will stop bigoted people from holding horrific ideologies,” Burke noted. “But it does prevent this group from organizing, from meeting, and prevents some of the sorts of horrific bigoted rallies that we’ve seen around our country.”

Under the terms of the ban, any act of supporting, funding, training for, recruiting to, joining or leading the group — even if it reorganizes under a new name — carries a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment. This landmark legislation fills a critical gap in Australian national security law, allowing authorities to ban hate groups that do not meet the existing legal definition of a terrorist organization, a change widely called for after the Bondi massacre.

The Islamist group Hibzt ut-Tahrir became the first organization banned under the law back in March, and both that group and the National Socialist Network were openly named by policymakers as the primary targets of the legislation from its early drafting stages.

The process for designating a banned hate group follows a clear two-step framework: Australia’s national security intelligence agency ASIO first assesses whether an organization meets the statutory criteria, which include a pattern of violence incitement, engagement in hate crime, and elevated risk of public harm. The final ban is then approved by a federal government minister.

The announcement comes as the group’s former leader, Thomas Sewell, awaits trial on multiple charges stemming from an alleged attack on an Indigenous protest camp in Melbourne last August. During an anti-immigration rally, a group of black-clad men affiliated with the network stormed the camp, leaving three people injured. Sewell has pleaded not guilty to all five counts against him.

Longstanding connections to transnational white supremacist violence have previously linked Sewell to one of the deadliest far-right attacks in modern history: an independent inquiry into the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre that killed 51 Muslims in New Zealand found that Sewell attempted to recruit the attack’s perpetrator, Brenton Tarrant, to another Australian white nationalist group two years before the massacre.

Burke rejected the group’s January claim that it would voluntarily disband to avoid member arrests, a announcement first reported by local Australian news outlets via a post on the network’s Telegram channel. He confirmed the federal government is already prepared to face any potential legal challenges from the newly outlawed organization.

The ban on the National Socialist Network is the latest in a series of escalating government actions against far-right extremism and rising antisemitism in Australia. Earlier in 2024, before the Bondi Beach attack, Canberra enacted a nationwide ban on Nazi salutes and the public display of swastikas and other Nazi symbols. That policy was itself a response to a months-long surge in antisemitic criminal activity targeting synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses and Jewish schools in Sydney and Melbourne.