The Strategic Stalemate Era for the US and China; Xi Welcomes American Young People; Domestic Crackdowns and Economic Concerns

Andrew Sharp (0:04)

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Sharp China. I'm Andrew Sharp, and on the other line, Bill Bishop. Bill, how are you doing?

Bill Bishop (0:14)

I'm doing well. We survived the state visit.

Andrew Sharp (0:18)

The avalanche of takes over the last seven days or so? Yeah, it was good.

Bill Bishop (0:22)

The tsunami of takes?

Andrew Sharp (0:24)

The tsunami of takes, indeed. Well, and Xi is gone, and he has left in his wake several days of gorgeous weather here in Washington. So I don't know whether we credit the big man for that, but I was outside just now.

Put me in a fantastic mood this fall weather.

Bill Bishop (0:40)

So we're gonna have a typhoon tonight?

Andrew Sharp (0:42)

I mean, this is, you know. You can just mark it down. It's about to get disgusting here in Washington. The Jim Cramer of weather has spoken. But speaking of great moods, we can talk through the visit. And Trump was in a great mood when he was asked about the meeting with Xi. He was asked to grade his meeting on a scale of one to 10 He said it was a 12

And Xi and the PRC side seemed pretty pleased as well.

Bill Bishop (1:10)

Xi, just to be clear, he also said the Busan meeting was a 12 Or the Beijing meeting. Yeah, I think it was the Beijing or Busan was a 12 He seems to like 12 It's almost like he watched Spinal Tap when he was younger and realized that he needs to go up.

Andrew Sharp (1:25)

11 is not enough. Yeah, so it goes to 12 with President Trump.

But Xi and the PRC side, they also seemed pleased with how it all went in Washington, DC. In general terms, what's your reaction to what we saw from the US and China last week?

Bill Bishop (1:43)

So look, it's good they're talking.

I think that it was quite heavy on pageantry and showmanship and pretty light on substance. I think certainly the staffing, the staffers seem to have made the schedule such that there was actual limited time for Xi and Trump to have real substantive discussions, which may have been by design. I think that the fact that the president met Xi at the airport, Andrew's, the Air Force Base was certainly interesting. First time that a US president has done that since the early 60s. I think that from the Chinese perspective, that is a real show of, again, it's a show of respect, it's a show of face, whatever you want to call it.

Andrew Sharp (2:25)

It's sort of, I think the PRC side is framing it as, look how far we've come. We're seen as a PRC.

Bill Bishop (2:30)

We're peers. But I think from Trump's perspective, it's cheap and also he likes this stuff. And so, the piece I wrote, the headline was Strategic Stailmate. This is not, there were no breakthroughs. This is not a new detente. This is not, there are no signs of any significant changes in the structural, the underlying structural dynamics of the relationship. The actual outcomes from these meetings were quite thin.

Andrew Sharp (3:01)

Well, I mean, that was one of the things that was entertaining is on Thursday, you had Xi welcome, well, Wednesday night, he's welcomed at Andrew's Air Force Base. And then there's all the pageantry on Thursday. And there are articles publicly about how Trump is potentially going soft on China. The eternal question under Trump to hear is, is he the ultimate dove in that administration? Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But that conversation was juxtaposed with the pageantry.

And then at the same time, the PRC wanted to extend the Busan truce by two and a half years to the end of his term. And the Trump administration extended it by two months. And we'll revisit all this over the next couple of months.

Bill Bishop (3:44)

Right. I mean, that I think, you know, you look at sort of the outcomes. That is one of the key outcomes. It's the fact that that extension, you know, that part of the deal expires November 10th. It's now extended to January 10th. And that extension period is shorter than expectations. It's certainly shorter than what the PRC side wanted. And the reasons, I think, you know, you heard the ambassador, USTR Ambassador Greer, in one of his media appearances last week, said that, you know, they wanted to keep it shorter. It's effectively a way to, you know, a compliance check.

Andrew Sharp (4:16)

Yeah, hold the PRC side accountable for its side of the deal.

Bill Bishop (4:21)