MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Two of the world's biggest powers and biggest adversaries just walked a red carpet together. President Trump met China's President Xi Jinping on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington - a rare diplomatic gesture. The agenda for the state visit is long. The two leaders have been at odds on trade, on the U.S. war with Iran, artificial intelligence and more. Yet the meeting itself was short, clocking in at about an hour and change. Xi and Trump meet again this evening in the East Room of the White House for a state dinner.
So what are the goals of this visit? And will there be deliverables from this tarmac diplomacy? Those are questions I put to NPR White House correspondent Emily Feng on NPR's national security podcast Sources & Methods.
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KELLY: Emily, I gather this was quite the welcome.
EMILY FENG: Trump went out personally to meet him on the tarmac, which is the first time that's happened for a Chinese state visit. It was a big gesture. It was a grand gesture that did not go unnoticed in China, and it shows just how important Trump takes the personal relationship when it comes to foreign policy with China.
KELLY: Yeah. I was seeing video of them rolling out a literal red carpet. And I was thinking of other occasions, like the red carpet that was rolled out for Vladimir Putin at the - at a...
FENG: Alaska.
KELLY: ...Military base last year in Alaska, indeed, although Vladimir Putin didn't get quite the flyover that Xi Jinping did.
FENG: He did get a ride in Trump's motorcade.
KELLY: He did. He did. But what were your takeaways from that flyover and just the whole pomp, circumstance and whether it works, whether we know if that has - that sort of thing has any kind of impact on Xi Jinping?
FENG: I think the question is, you know, what does work mean? Like, what does success for this summit mean for China and the U.S.?
KELLY: Mmhmm.
FENG: My impression is both of them really want this to go smoothly, knowing full well they're not going to walk away agreeing with one another, and that's fine. If they can have a smooth visit, everyone looks happy, Xi can show that he is just as powerful as the United States, then that's a success for China.
And I'll note that in the opening remarks, the two men were really conciliatory. Both of them mentioned kind of the classics of what I consider U.S.-China cooperation over the last 150 years. They both mentioned the fact that the U.S. and Chinese fought together on the same side during World War II. Trump mentioned the Flying Tigers. Xi Jinping invoked this Obama-era educational initiative called the 100,000 Strong initiative, proposing that, you know, we send as many students from China to the U.S. to study and American students to study in China again. There are apparently two pandas that were born in China who are coming back to American zoos after this visit. So kind of, like, the classic hallmarks of where the U.S. and China have been able to work together.
But there are already little cracks starting to show. So, for example, Trump wrote on Truth Social right before the welcoming ceremony that artificial intelligence is going to be talked about today with Xi Jinping. But he suggested that the U.S. and China most likely are not going to pursue any kind of joint regulation of the development of AI. And then Xi Jinping comes out in his opening remarks, and what was really notable is he explicitly mentions artificial intelligence before talks even begin, saying, ultimately, quote, "it should remain under human control."
KELLY: You said what would count as a success for China might come down to just being seen on the world stage and recognized as America's equal. What counts as a successful summit from the U.S. side?
FENG: I think Trump is trying to look stable and strong before the midterm elections. They're really working hard to nail down a commitment of Chinese purchases of agricultural goods. This had been agreed upon during Trump's visit to China, but the exact details of things like tariff reductions and getting the Chinese actually on schedule, buying American soybeans and things like that - that is going to be something the Trump administration is pursuing this time around.
They're trying to close a deal on China buying 200 Boeing airplanes, which was announced when Trump went to China, but hasn't actually been implemented just yet. And the order books for planes like this is years long anyway, so even if they affirm something and sign on the dotted line this week, it doesn't mean that those planes get delivered anytime soon. But he's looking for little wins like that. Something, for example, like an artificial intelligence hotline that was teased during New York talks between Secretary Bessent from Treasury and his counterparts in China. They met in New York last weekend right before this summit and said, you know, maybe we'll have something like an AI hotline. So that might be announced also as a deliverable from this summit. But...
KELLY: What would an AI hotline even look like? I'm picturing, like, a red phone that lights up on your desk, but that feels a little anachronistic if we're talking about AI.
FENG: There's an AI analyst named Matt Sheehan who suggested, instead of a phone, why don't we do a fax machine? Why don't we fax each other?
KELLY: Yeah (laughter).
FENG: If, you know, a rogue AI breaks loose or we notice some kind of loophole in something, like, we can fax each other about these risks. But this has been talked about for months now, and it's being trotted out now, this hotline, as an achievement in the relationship.
KELLY: Huh. The really important question, Emily, do we know what is for dinner tonight at the state dinner?
FENG: We do. I can pull up the menu if you want.
KELLY: Yeah.
FENG: They are serving an American sparkling wine. The same wine, by the way, that President Nixon and then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai used to toast when they normalized the ping-pong diplomacy, the big diplomatic visit that began the normalization of relations between the U.S. and China in 1972. And they're going to be feasting on pancetta, on sea bass, on ice cream. And...
KELLY: Ice cream (laughter). I love it.
FENG: ...While I've been at the White House the last couple of days, I've been able to catch faint strains of the U.S. Marine Band preparing, rehearsing for this evening's entertainment. And it's been a little surreal to hear the strains of the Chinese anthem and very patriotic Chinese songs like - there's one called "My Motherland And Me," (speaking Mandarin), which plays everywhere in China. And I heard that very, very, very faintly yesterday playing on the White House grounds.
KELLY: Noting that you were our Beijing correspondent for years before you moved and have applied yourself to the White House. So it's great to...
FENG: Yes.
KELLY: Great.
FENG: The music follows me.
KELLY: 'Cause I would not recognize that song if I were wandering the White House this week.
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KELLY: I was speaking with NPR White House correspondent Emily Feng. NPR diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen also joined us on Sources & Methods. You can listen to our full conversation wherever you get your podcasts, including takeaways from Michele and me from covering this week's U.N. General Assembly.
(SOUNDBITE OF BADBADNOTGOOD AND GHOSTFACE KILLAH'S "EXPERIENCE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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