US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet again to wrap up a two-day state visit that has featured pomp and business deals as well as talks on Iran war but also a stark warning from Xi that mishandling the Taiwan issue could push US-China relations to "a very dangerous place."
Trump is on the first visit by a US president to China, America's main strategic and economic rival, since a 2017 visit during his first term.
The two leaders are scheduled to have tea and lunch on Friday before Trump flies back to the United States.
The summit has been aimed at maintaining a fragile trade truce struck when the leaders last met in October and Trump suspended triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods and Xi backed away from choking global supplies of vital rare earths.
Trump has also been expected to urge China to convince Iran to make a deal with Washington to end a war unpopular with American voters.
A brief US summary of Thursday's talks highlighted what the White House called the leaders' shared desire to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global supplies of oil and natural gas travel in normal times, and Xi's apparent interest in buying American oil to reduce China's dependence on Middle East supplies.
Trump told Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity that China had agreed to order 200 Boeing jets, its first purchase of US-made commercial jets in nearly a decade.
That total was much lower than markets were expecting.
Media reports had suggested the planemaker was nearing a deal to sell 500 or more airplanes to China and Boeing shares fell more than 4 percent after the comments were aired.
China’s warning on Taiwan
Xi's remarks on Taiwan represented a sharp, if not unprecedented, warning during a pomp-filled summit that otherwise appeared friendly and relaxed.
China's foreign ministry said they came in a closed-door meeting that ran more than two hours.
Taiwan, which lies just 80 km off China's coast, has long been a flashpoint in US-China ties, with Beijing refusing to rule out the use of military force to gain control of the island and the United States bound by law to provide Taipei with the means to defend itself.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is with Trump in China, told NBC News that Taiwan was discussed, saying the Chinese "always raise it ... we always make clear our position and we move on to the other topics."
"US policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today," Rubio added.
"There are those who say this may be the biggest summit ever," Trump said earlier at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, after a ceremony that featured an honor guard and throngs of children waving flowers and flags.
At a lavish state banquet, Xi called the China-US relationship the most important in the world and added: "We must make it work and never mess it up."
China's foreign ministry said Xi had told Trump that preparatory negotiations between US and Chinese trade teams on Wednesday had reached "balanced and positive outcomes."
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who led those talks, said he expected progress on establishing mechanisms to support future bilateral trade and investment, and an announcement about large Chinese orders for Boeing aircraft.
Thucydides Trap
Trump, meanwhile, responded to a comment by Xi referring to the "Thucydides Trap," a political theory that war becomes more likely when a rising new power competes with an established great power.
Xi, however, said the United States and China could "transcend" this danger.
In a social media post in the early hours of Friday, Trump said Xi "very elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation."
Trump said Xi was not referring to the United States under his watch, which he claimed was experiencing an "incredible rise," but rather the country under his predecessor Joe Biden.
"Two years ago, we were, in fact, a Nation in decline," Trump posted on his Truth Social site.
"Now, the United States is the hottest Nation anywhere in the world, and hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger and better than ever before!"
He said that Xi "congratulated me on so many tremendous successes."
