Until now, American presidents have appeared in Beijing as the undisputed leaders of the free world. The People’s Republic was viewed either as a supplicant or as an actor that should hang on the visitor from Washington’s every word in order to learn quickly. Those days have been over since last week. In this sense, the summit in Beijing was a complete success for Xi Jinping, not because he wrested substantial concessions from Trump, but because the US President had to speak to China’s leader on an equal level for the first time.
