WASHINGTON D.C. – With seven days to go before a high-stakes meeting between the leaders of the United States and China, some key logistical details remain undecided, potentially hamstringing planning for the business deals, trade talks, and technology-related discussions for the two countries. Interagency conversations to prepare briefing materials and talking points for President Trump to present to the Chinese leader and his delegation have not yet been completed, some U.S. officials say. Uncertainty over how many seats the Chinese delegation will be given at the state dinner that night has hampered the Chinese delegation from finalizing which tech executives may accompany Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The details of the planning are according to interviews with 10 current and former U.S. officials as well as three people involved with meeting planning, all of whom requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly. The White House did not provide an on the record statement when asked for comment. Despite the lingering questions, China remains optimistic about the summit.
"The Chinese are very enthusiastic about this summit because I think it's a way for them to manage the U.S.," said Randall Shriver, former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs and current chair of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which provides recommendations to Congress on China. However, in private, top level Chinese leaders from the country's foreign ministry and elite Politburo Committee have expressed concern to U.S. representatives in the last four weeks that the U.S. has been finalizing an agenda and security and protocol details up until the last days before the summit. "Every meal, every moment they sit down and are photographed, the way that they are positioned on stage in the arrival ceremony, the amount of time which they are asked to speak, if they speak, the kind of composition of the crowd: all of these things are something that Beijing will pay attention to and will want not simply to negotiate but will want to feel certainty about," said Julian Gewirtz, a historian and scholar at Columbia School of Public and International Affairs.
The Trump administration has embraced its reputation as an ad hoc negotiator. Its last-minute working style has flummoxed their counterparts in Beijing, who have tried to avoid a repeat of a preparation process haphazard enough to prompt a top Chinese diplomat to chide some of their American counterparts for their "half-a**ed" planning following President Trump's May visit to Beijing, according to a person in the meeting with the diplomat who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly. Yet during a July visit to Washington headed by Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, Beijing posed more than a dozen follow-up logistics questions and clarifications to American officials that did not receive concrete answers because the logistics awaited final confirmation from the White House, according to two people familiar with the contents of the meeting who also requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
A senior U.S. official, speaking on background because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said the Chinese vice foreign minister's visit was unrelated to the planning for the upcoming meeting. U.S. representatives say summit planning has picked up since then, but remains behind schedule compared to preparation for previous state visits of similar magnitude. The paralysis in planning for this meeting is partially due to competing agendas within various agencies in the U.S. government, according to the 10 current and former U.S. officials NPR spoke to.
The U.S. has ceded no more than "perfect reciprocity," according to four of the people, meaning China's Xi Jinping will receive programming and access not exceeding what President Trump enjoyed in Beijing in May. As a result, Xi's team dropped an early proposal to have him speak at an American university in Washington, D.C. during his September trip, because Trump had not been asked to deliver a speech on a Chinese campus during his visit in May, according to two people familiar with trip planning not authorized to speak publicly. The senior U.S. official said the White House never received a request for Xi to speak at any event.
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