Did the Beijing Summit Matter?

I was in China the past month. My last day coincided with the Presidents of China and America holding a summit in Beijing on Thursday. Did this summit, potentially the first of several this year, matter? And if so, to whom and why? I see a disconnect between the macro of the political theater on the national and global stages and the micro of the day-to-day concerns of the Chinese middle class.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, May 14, 2026 (AP Photo by Mark Schiefelbein)

Macro

The fact that the Presidential get-together happened mattered if for no other reason than the leaders of the two, most powerful nations in the world were meeting, talking, and sharing meals. Détente, truce, competitive breather, call it what you will, the parties were at least playing at being civil. This being said, each side believes it achieved what it wanted because each was playing a different game with different rules and goals. Not ideal, dangerous even long term, but it was the best that could be hoped for in this age of distrust and exceptionalism.

There were actually multiple, parallel summits that took place in China’s capital last week. Though interrelated, each had its own agenda and respective audience:

1. There was the Substance v. Fantasy Summit:

• President Xi welcomed President Trump to Beijing with Kingly pomp. The latter lapped it up and was pacified and effusive in his praise as it played out. While doing so, China pronounced a new framework to govern U.S.-China relations of “building a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability.” Language matters in China, and this phraseology is new and consequential in the minds of the Chinese. It was an announcement. A declaration. The world saw a China in charge, equal in political and military standing to a deferential America, playing host to the other world superpower and setting the table for future relations.

  
  

• For his part, President Trump interpreted the elaborate reception and statecraft as acknowledgment of America’s greatness and power. In his world (and that of his acolytes and governmental enablers), everything America touches is golden and others bend to our will because of our historic strength and righteousness. The subsequent White House announcement accepting the new “vison” added an additional phrase, that of “constructive relationship of strategic stability on the basis of fairness and reciprocity.” As for this new governing framework, the printouts from the respective governments differ in scope and emphasis and thus meaning and intent.

  
  

  2. There was the Behind-The-Scenes Economics Summit:

  
  

• Other than the few announcements trickling out thus far around aircraft, possible agriculture purchases, and an agreement to further talk on tariffs, nothing overly substantial happened in Beijing on the financial front. However, the American entourage did not include almost twenty of America’s leading business leaders for nothing. They went (word is that many for more than just the two nights Air Force One was on the ground) for meetings, dialogue, and dealmaking. If there is economic meat that comes to fruition from these contacts (and there will be), it will be subsequent and quiet. The choice of American accompaniment to Beijing confirms officially that any concepts of decoupling, deleveraging, and de-risking are dead, not just dormant. America and China need each other.

  
  

3. There was the Domestic Audiences Summit:

• Each side needed to project confidence, power, and effectiveness to its core supporters in the public. China’s effectiveness at this messaging was a relatively easy lift. Overall, the country is strong, powerful, and a leading player on the world stage. There was no need to make significant concessions, certainly not publicly, when they have the upper hand in so many areas. They are back, baby.

  
  

• On the other side of the ledger, if one accepts President Trump’s recap of what was said, how it was said, and what it means, then Americans should be proud of our nation and its leadership. We are Number 1. We are respected, feared, and get results. We are back, baby.

  
  

Abandoned commercial complex (next to abandoned residential complex), Henan Province (photo by author)

Micro

Do these macro geopolitical outcomes, important as they can be, translate to the micro daily lives of the citizens? Based on my experiences during this trip, my answer is generally no. Yes, the Chinese are justifiably proud of China’s rise. Yes, China’s economy is humming by several significant metrics, e.g., infrastructure, exports, hi-tech, and domestic travel. And yet, what I saw and heard supports the argument that all is far from peaches and cream in China.

In fact, family and individual pressures; wage and cost struggles; unemployment, underemployment, and overemployment; and angst over future opportunities are rife on the ground. I saw vacant storefronts and the silent hulks of unfinished residential towers. I walked past the weedy overgrowth of previously-occupied, now abandoned residential and commercial developments. I heard the quiet pleas and whispers in too many venues from too many people as part of casual conversation for these concerns to not exponentially be a significant weight on the country. The government appears to recognize this problem, but effective solutions remain elusive.

China’s middle class, a cohort ranging anywhere from 300 to 700 million people (numbers larger than the total U.S. and E.U. populations, respectively), is anxious. Parents worry about cost of living, education, childcare, and job prospects for themselves and their children. Credit card and loan debts are real. The young are scared. Employment is increasingly a choice among nothing, gig or 996 (the latter for the lucky).

Many restaurants are begging for customers. Many small businesses are suffering, losing money, not paying rent, and failing. People who borrowed money from friends, relatives, and contacts in the go-go years to invest and develop businesses are delaying and defaulting in droves. People are hustling, trying to make ends meet, and too often coming up short.

In the still depressed real estate market, owners who bought too much too quickly as encouraged by the then market and savings model are selling properties at fire sale prices or abandoning them altogether to avoid ongoing costs and losses. This is true even though they remain on the hook legally for institutional loans if the lenders want to go after them (think blood from a stone). The knock-on effects among contractors and subcontractors, furniture sellers and decorators, and other tangential businesses are cascading.

Against this backdrop of local cares and worries, the State Dinner at the end of the Summit, the private presidential tour of the Temple of Heaven (unprecedentedly closed to the public for three days), and even a new political framework for governing U.S.-China contacts pale by comparison. The Beijing Summit mattered, and it didn’t.