Denis Staunton: Xi is in a strong position and feels confident in taking a tough approach to negotiations

By the time Xi Jinping’s meeting with Donald Trump in South Korea takes place on Thursday, the details of any deal between the world’s two biggest economies will already have been worked out by their officials. On Sunday, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said a “very substantial framework” had been reached.

The Chinese president will want no surprises and there will be no equivalent of the extended, impromptu press conferences in the Oval Office Trump has used to embarrass other leaders over the past nine months.

Xi faces into this week’s meeting in a stronger position than when he last met Trump on the margins of a G20 summit in Osaka in 2019. Since then, he has had more time to study Trump’s playbook and to prepare for a trade war that Chinese officials have long regarded as inevitable.

During Trump’s first term he caught China off guard with his capricious moves on trade, and Xi’s response was usually reactive and restrained. Although Beijing had cards to play, including access to its huge market for American farmers, the importance of its trade relationship with the US meant Xi was always going to make a deal.

This time, China has been more ruthless and targeted, using export controls and other non-tariff measures as well as matching Trump’s tariffs with levies on US goods. Each time Trump has tried to escalate, a Chinese countermeasure has alarmed the markets and forced him into retreat.

When the US president hit China harder with tariffs than any other country on “Liberation Day” last April, Beijing responded by restricting the export of rare earths. China controls 90 per cent of the refining of these minerals, which are used to make magnets that are essential for manufacturing everything from laptops to cars.

The move caused a number of car factories in the US to halt production and forced Trump into