Why Xi & He are really meeting

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have their own separate reasons to meet in Washington. The highly flappable American wants to avoid anything that could make the American consumer (read: voter) deliver him an unpleasant result in the November midterms. The unflappable Chinese wants to perk up a sluggish economy, continue building China's industrial, technological and military strength, and ultimately make the Communist Party of China in general, and his supreme position in it in particular, secure. For both parties, AI supremacy matters.

As the ostensible main course, AI regulation will be two distinct cuisines for Xi and Trump on the table: open source to be proliferated by China to its 'allies' as part of its global outreach programme; 'flip switch' command-and-control for the American supreme leader to maintain US tech supremacy. In reality, AI regulation is likely to remain hors d'oeuvre as broad principles. More substantial barters are likely to be in play: Xi 'quantitative easing' rare earths for Trump lifting tariffs. In other words, the same menu as in May when Trump came to Beijing for a state visit.

In the larger scheme of things is a mapping out of global 'spheres of influence' - not just through AI, trade etc, but also through Iran, Taiwan etc. Trump's blow hot-blow cold China policy is indicative of how he sees US foreign policy being a division of global influence between White House and Zhongnanhai. Xi, on his part, wants China to be able to stick to its great techno-economy state plan without getting sidetracked by a housing crisis, and growing demographic and employment niggles. Trump-Xi meetings won't be just another test of red lines, but also testing the waters to draw global lines of influence under a 'pragmatic' 'G2'.