SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Highly anticipated meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping earlier this week has led to a pause, but not an end, to trade and tech competition issues. Off the table for now are U.S. increases in tariffs on Chinese goods and a pause on more Chinese export control on rare earth materials the U.S. cannot make itself. NPR's Emily Feng reports.
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PRESIDENT XI JINPING: Great pleasure to see you again.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Good to see you again.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: The two men leading the world's two biggest sovereign economies shook hands and smiled in South Korea earlier this week. Never mind that in the last month, they'd each dangled proposed trade measures that were potentially economically ruinous for the other country. Here's Trump after the meeting.
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TRUMP: But overall, I guess on the scale from 0 to 10 with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12.
FENG: The meeting does set up more high-level diplomacy between the U.S. and China says Bonny Lin, who follows China at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. However...
BONNY LIN: It doesn't take us fundamentally back to where we were at the beginning of the administration.
FENG: And some big issues remain unresolved. The U.S., for example, is undecided on whether it will lift export controls on selling very powerful semiconductors to China, semiconductor chips that China really wants to buy for artificial intelligence development.
LIN: So far from what we've seen in this administration, the focus is very much on the economic side of the relationship, the trade side of the relationship, not necessarily on the more traditional national security elements.
FENG: Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, did not come up either.
WU XINBO: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: Wu Xinbo, a professor of U.S.-China relations at Shanghai's Fudan University, says overall, this summit was positive, but the issue of Taiwan...
WU: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: ...Will be postponed until Trump's visit to China. Trump says that trip could happen in April, nearly half a year away. And such a trip could spell much more engagement with China at a time when American perceptions of the country are actually becoming slightly more positive.
CRAIG KAFURA: I think a lot of this has to do with the trade war that's happened in the second Trump administration.
FENG: Craig Kafura heads public opinion research at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a think tank. Their new poll shows 53% of Americans now want to pursue more cooperation with China.
KAFURA: That's up from 40% in 2024.
FENG: Kafura says, it's unusual to see such large swings in public opinion, but he thinks it's partially tied to American confidence, mostly among registered Democrats. Republicans largely still want to limit China's power.
KAFURA: Democrats have become less confident in U.S. economic power at the same time that they've become more likely to say, we should approach China in a different manner.
FENG: As in, China is becoming more competitive with the U.S. And so working with them, rather than decoupling completely, could now be more politically palatable. Emily Feng, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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