To no one’s surprise, the summit meeting between Trump and Chinese premier Xi Jinping did not produce any major agreements. Although Trump claimed to have settled a lot of issues, nothing was detailed about the main issues of Iran, Taiwan, trade, tariffs and rare earth supplies.

Trump took along with him a whole slew of business leaders and oligarchs from the US, but that did not seem to have produced any tangible benefit. It is not clear how they could personally contribute to such talks anyway. It seems like they were taken along because of Trump’s belief that having wealthy people along with him might somehow sway the Chinese to give concessions on technology and trade. That did not happen, as far as we know, and indeed despite the Boeing CEO being there, the deal on planes that was announced was for just 200 planes, a big drop from the 500 that had been expected before the summit.

Trump likes to play power games with foreign leaders such as with handshakes but this time it was Xi who came out on top. His mention of the ‘Thucydides trap’ seemed like a twofer. One was to show his intellectual superiority since it is certain that he knew that Trump would have no clue as to who Thucydides was, let alone what the trap was about. But his use of that trap also implies that it is China that is the rising power and the US the one in decline, and that the US should tread warily, especially on the issue of Taiwan.

In his opening remarks on Thursday, Xi made reference to the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, a decades long conflict that erupted between Athens and Sparta in 431BC.

In a shot across the bow of hegemonic rivalry, Xi asked:

“Can China and the United States transcend the so-called ‘Thucydides Trap’ and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?”
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The Chinese leader later warned Trump that any missteps on Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict”.

“The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations,” Xi said, of the self governing island that China claims as its own.

“If mishandled, the two nations could collide or even come into conflict, pushing the entire China-US relationship into a highly perilous situation,” he added.

A $14 billion arms package is in the works for Taiwan that China is not happy about. Trump has not yet committed to the arms shipment and observers are watching to see what he does.

Taiwan is clearly concerned about Trump’s ambiguous remarks.

Taiwan asserted its sovereignty Saturday after U.S. President Donald Trump warned against Taiwanese self-determination following the American leader’s two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Taiwan “is a sovereign and independent democratic nation, and is not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry’s remarks come as a swift rebuke against Trump, who said Friday that he was “not looking to have somebody go independent” when asked about whether the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s rescue in the event of an invasion by China.

If Trump was expecting to persuade Xi to us China’s muscle to persuade Iran to capitulate to the US, that did not happen.

China’s foreign ministry on Friday again called for a ceasefire in Iran and said the strait of Hormuz should be opened “as soon as possible”.

About half of China’s crude oil passes through the waterway, but the bigger threat for the Chinese economy is if the conflict in the Middle East causes a global recession that dents demand for its exports.

But many in Beijing feel that the crisis in Iran is not China’s responsibility.

Zhou Bo, a retired senior army colonel and a senior fellow in the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, said: “On Iran, China definitely wants to help but I read what Rubio said: he actually seems to shift the burden to the Chinese side. In China, we have a saying: it is like, ‘Why should I clean your shit?’”

These commentators probably summed up best the outcome of the summit.

“Xi Jinping has been working for years to be ready for this moment, to bring an American president to Beijing as a peer, widely acknowledged as such around the world. And now it is happening,” [Julina] Gerwirtz said.

Wu Xinbo, a professor of international studies at Fudan University and a Chinese government adviser, said the balance of power between the US and China was “shifting towards greater parity”.

“In the past, it always seemed as though the United States held the upper hand, constantly exerting pressure on China and taking the offensive. Now, however, it’s fair to say that the two countries have reached a new point of equilibrium,” Wu said.

So it looks like the summit was a stalemate on substance with an edge to China on optics.