Busan pact renewal and AI hotline mooted ahead of meeting
The Sept. 24 meeting will be the second Trump-Xi summit of 2026, following the May gathering in Beijing. Mitter framed the expected agenda around what he called the “three Ts”: trade, technology and Taiwan, with artificial intelligence emerging as the most unpredictable element since the previous summit.
On trade, the most concrete near-term action involves renewing the framework agreed at Busan, South Korea, nearly a year ago. Under that arrangement, the United States lifted some export controls on high-end technology and reduced then-three-figure tariffs on Chinese goods, while China agreed not to restrict the flow of critical minerals and rare earths to U.S. users. Mitter wrote that both sides are likely to seek a continuation of the arrangement, with adjustments rather than wholesale change.
Both governments have separately proposed creating a Board of Trade to assess non-sensitive U.S.-China business interests, though details remain vague, according to Mitter. A proposed Board of Investment remains “on the drawing board,” the commentary said. The Chinese side has proposed bringing major Chinese CEOs to the summit to mirror the business delegation that accompanied Trump to Beijing in May, which included Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Tesla’s Elon Musk. Mitter said the choice of business leaders is likely to turn on which aspects of trade China thinks can develop most effectively in the short term.
Taiwan presents the harder set of issues and the least likely ground for movement. According to Mitter, Trump has been less willing than his predecessor to commit the United States to defending the island should Beijing invade, instead reasserting Washington’s long-held position of strategic ambiguity. Although the United States is currently distracted from East Asia by the Iran conflict, China still prefers methods short of war to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control, the commentary said.
Mitter identified Taiwan’s January 2028 presidential election as a more crucial moment for the island’s future, particularly if the opposition — and more China-friendly — Kuomintang party wins the presidency, or indeed if an isolationist candidate becomes U.S. president later that year. If the next U.S. president opted to change course by taking a less active involvement in overseas issues — as has been floated by early contenders on both the left and right — that would change things all the more, Mitter wrote.
Beijing’s near-term approach, according to the commentary, involves continuing to build the People’s Liberation Army’s naval capacity while combining economic incentives and coercion, squeezing Taipei’s international footprint and waiting for a slackening of U.S. interest in the western Pacific.
On technology, the agenda has gained urgency since the May summit, where AI regulation unexpectedly entered the discussions. On Sept. 20, the two governments mooted the idea of a “hotline” to notify each other about AI national security risks, according to Mitter’s account.
The two countries have different reasons to discuss regulation. The alarming prospect of rogue AI companies causing intense social disruptions through their business choices is clearly one such reason, Mitter wrote; in the United States, voters’ more immediate concerns about data centers are another. Public sentiment toward AI differs markedly between the two countries. In the United States, growing fears about unregulated AI have produced what Mitter described as an “increasingly unfriendly atmosphere.” In China, public sentiment is less openly hostile, and AI’s benefits in areas such as healthcare have softened attitudes, though private concerns persist about whether the country’s troubled economy will benefit from the AI boom. Mitter also noted that relatively few jobs have been created for a workforce facing wide-scale job elimination.
Mitter wrote that China may also seek AI restraint because of a China-specific reason: AI that “runs out of control” is a “kryptonite phrase” for the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. He connected that concern to Xi’s youth, when Xi spent years in rural exile after his father fell to a purge just before the Cultural Revolution — an upheaval during which China’s politics turned to anarchy, and which, Mitter wrote, has no doubt influenced Xi’s tendencies as a leader “toward exercising as much control as possible.” AI that undermines the Communist Party’s unchallengeable leadership would be unwelcome in China’s cyberspace, the commentary noted, and regulation addressing that problem would not necessarily be rejected.
Other international issues are likely to receive less attention, according to the commentary. China is expected to express its unhappiness about the war on Iran, while the United States may remind Beijing that it has passed new legislation allowing sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil — of which, China is the largest purchaser. Neither issue is likely to lead to major changes in practice, Mitter said.
The Trump-Xi summit is less important for any specific policy shift than as part of a commitment to maintain dialogue between the two countries’ leaders, Mitter wrote. The two leaders may meet twice more in the near future at the G20 and APEC summits. Four meetings in just over half a year would be a positive sign; refusal to meet would be more worrying, the commentary said.
On the three Ts, Mitter’s expectations are limited: trade progress is most likely; Taiwan is unlikely to be touched substantively; and AI cooperation may amount to “talks about talks,” with behind-the-scenes engagement potentially more substantive than public outcomes. The commentary noted that levels of trust between Washington and Beijing remain “very low” on the issue, and that neither government nor private-sector actors are willing to make concessions that could advantage the other side. What happens behind the scenes may be pursued more discreetly, Mitter wrote.