Gustavo de Aristegui : Geopolitical analysis of May 14

1. Brève introduction
2. Strategic context: the road to Beijing
3. The five axes of the summit
4. Media rack
5. Editorial commentary

Brève introduction

On May 14, 2026, Air Force One landed at Beijing International Airport, ending nearly a decade of absence of an American president on Chinese soil. Donald Trump, welcomed with state honors by Vice President Han Zheng, was heading to the first major bilateral summit in its own right – and not on the sidelines of a multilateral forum – since Xi Jinping consolidated his power without constitutional limits in 2018.

The ceremonial image, the red carpet rolled out in front of the Great Hall of the People, the hashtag #WelcomeTrumpToChina at the top of the trends on Weibo: everything suggested diplomatic normality. But beneath this carefully staged surface were hidden fractures of a depth that no common photo can hide.

This analyst believes that the Beijing summit in May 2026 constitutes the most significant bilateral geopolitical event since the Plaza Accords of 1985 – although in the opposite direction: at the time, the United States dictated the conditions of monetary parity; today, it trade from a position of greater equality and balance, even if it is not absolute parity.

The systemic rivalry between the established power and the rising power – the “Thucydides Trap” as formulated by Graham T. Allison – has not disappeared; it has mutated towards more sophisticated, transactional and, in some respects, more dangerous forms, because they hide the underlying antagonism under a veneer of “win-win cooperation”.

This monographic report analyzes in depth the five axes of the summit – trade and customs duties, the Strait of Hormuz and Iran, Taiwan, artificial intelligence and technology, and nuclear control – as well as the power context in which it takes place, the divergent interests of each party, the foreseeable agreements and the lines that no one will cross.

Strategic context: the road to Beijing

The preliminary architecture: from the tariff war to the Busan truce

Trump’s second term began in January 2025 with an unprecedented tariff escalation — duties that, at their peak, exceeded 140% on Chinese imports — which Beijing absorbed with a resilience that surprised analysts. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) experienced growth of 5% in 2025, extending this dynamic until the first quarter of 2026, while rapidly diversifying its export markets and accelerating its technological substitution policy.

Xi Jinping’s response was surgically precise: in April and October 2025, he threatened to restrict exports of rare earths – of which China controls between 75% and 80% of global production and 95% of refining capacity – forcing Trump to retreat on these two occasions. This “weapon of broken glass” that constitutes rare earths has demonstrated that the Western supply chain, and in particular the American one, presents a structural vulnerability of the first order.

The result was the Busan summit (October 30, 2025, on the sidelines of APEC in South Korea): Trump called it “12 out of 10” and the Chinese press a “hard-won success.” The agreements included a reduction in US tariffs on Chinese goods from 57% to 47%, large Chinese purchases of soybeans, sorghum, Alaskan oil and Boeing planes, the suspension of mutual export controls, cooperation on fentanyl, as well as an annually renewable agreement on rare earths and critical minerals. A reciprocal visit has been announced: Trump to China in spring 2026; Xi in the United States at the end of the year.

Three months later, American and Israeli strikes against Iran – Operation Epic Fury – delayed the visit, initially planned for April. The negotiated reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, partially blocked since then, has become the most urgent priority on Beijing’s agenda.

The asymmetry of powers in 2026: who arrives in a position of strength

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) – reference sources for this analyst – agree on an uncomfortable diagnosis for Washington: China arrives in Beijing with greater strategic confidence than in 2017, when Trump had Been greeted with “plus state visit” – dinner at the Forbidden City, parade on Tian’anmen, $250 billion in trade deals. Xi demonstrated to his executives that “the East rises and the West declines » and that “time and momentum are on our side”.

Trump arrives, on the other hand, at a politically delicate moment: the war against Iran has caused energy inflation to soar, eroding his popularity at the national level, and he needs to present concrete victories. His delegation – Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trade Representative (equivalent to Secretary of Trade) Jamieson Greer, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who becomes the first Pentagon chief to participate in a presidential visit to China – reveals the breadth of the negotiating spectrum, as well as the presence of more than a dozen CEOs, including Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), Tim Cook (Apple), Jensen Huang (Nvidia) and other leaders from the technology and financial sector. At first glance, this summit looks more like an economic and commercial mission than a geopolitical confrontation.

However, the CSIS points out with analytical rigor that China’s “anxiety” about organizing this meeting – despite its confident attitude – betrays the fact that Beijing does not feel as strong as it proclaims: Chinese exports to the United States fell 11% year-on-year in first quarter 2026; market diversification is real but costly; and the instability of the Iranian situation threatens to interrupt the supply of oil of which China remains the world’s leading buyer.

The five axes of the summit

Trade, customs duties and the new bilateral architecture

Facts

The Busan truce expires in its most sensitive phase at the end of 2026, when various “snap back” measures – which will be automatically reactivated if not renewed – come into effect. The Trump administration is pursuing three economic objectives in Beijing: (i) extending the truce and setting its renewal within the framework of a “Trade Board” and a “Investment Board” of a permanent nature; (ii) increase Chinese purchases of agricultural products (soybeans, beef), energy (Alaska LNG) and aircraft (Boeing); (iii) obtain better access for American companies to the Chinese market, which remains one of the most restrictive in the world from a regulatory perspective. Trump said during the presidential flight that his “first ask” of Xi would be that he “open up” China’s economy to American companies.

Implications

The Heritage Foundation rightly points out that all measures agreed to so far are reversible and that Beijing has shown itself to be strategically adept in making concessions on verifiable points and at low political cost – soy purchases, suspension of regulations – while preserving its strategic priorities: technology policy, security architecture in the Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan.

The proposed Trade Council could provide a valuable mechanism for “institutionalizing” the economic relationship – a positive – but it could also become a site of permanent conflict in the absence of political will from both sides. This analyst believes that the risk of a new all-out tariff war has diminished, but has not been eliminated; the bilateral architecture is fragile and excessively dependent on the personal chemistry between the two leaders.

Perspectives et scénarios

Scenario A (most likely, 55%): announcement of an extension of the Busan truce, new Chinese purchases in the agriculture and energy sectors, and official creation of the Trade Council. Customs duties remain around 47% as a balance point. Result: fragile but functional stabilization.

Scenario B (moderately likely, 30%): partial agreement – ​​new purchases, without formalized Trade Council – with vague commitments on the reduction of customs duties. Result: strategic ambiguity which benefits China more than the United States.

Scenario C (unlikely but possible, 15%): Rupture or lack of agreement on one of the sensitive points (Taiwan, IA) which contaminates the economic climate and causes a new escalation before the end of the year.

The Strait of Hormuz and the war with Iran: the variable that permeates everything

Facts

The de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by the Iranian jihadist oligarchy – worsened after Operation Epic Fury – has caused oil and natural gas prices to soar, hitting the global economy and particularly US inflation. Trump hopes Xi will pressure Tehran to reopen the strait and agree to a peace deal.

The signal given before the summit was striking: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi went to Beijing the previous week, and China presented itself in Washington as the interlocutor who had already “weighed” with Iran to facilitate reopening. Chinese citizens interviewed by CNN in the streets of Beijing, on the other hand, expressed little enthusiasm for the idea of ​​their country getting involved in the conflict.

A senior Trump administration official confirmed to reporters — on condition of anonymity — that Trump was expected to “pressure” Xi over Hormuz. But China is the world’s largest buyer of Iranian oil; its relationship with Tehran is of deep strategic interest, and not simply tactical.

Implications

The Iranian jihadist oligarchy – and the triumvirate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) led by General Ahmed Vahidi, with Mohamed B. Zolghadr at the head of the Al-Quds Brigades – has demonstrated a tenacity that defies external pressure analysis models. China can persuade Tehran from the sidelines, but it cannot – and will not – force a 180-degree reversal of Iranian energy policy without offering something in return.

The risk that Beijing sells Washington a symbolic “mediation” having no real operational effect on the closure of the strait is high. For Europe – dependent on hydrocarbon trafficking via Hormuz – and for Spain in particular, whose official position towards the United States presents a structural inconsistency that this analyst describes since the start of the conflict (the bases of Rota and Morón actively support the operation while the government maintains public hostility towards Washington), the outcome of this axis is of vital importance.

Perspectives et scénarios

Scenario A (likely, 50%): China announces “active consultations” with Iran and undertakes to “facilitate” the partial reopening of the strait. Without binding operational commitment. Trump presents the result as a victory. The reality on the ground changes little in the short term.

Scenario B (possible, 35%): China transmits to Tehran specific conditions for a de facto reopening, in exchange for American guarantees on the lifting of secondary sanctions affecting Chinese purchases of Iranian oil. Implicit agreement, never declared.

Scenario C (unlikely, 15%): Xi rejects active mediation on Iran and the Strait is excluded from the joint communiqué. Maximum residual voltage.

Taiwan: the red line not to be crossed

Facts

The official daily newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Daily, published before Trump’s arrival an editorial of unprecedented firmness, calling the Taiwan issue “the first red line not to be crossed in Sino-American relations” and “the main point of risk” between the two powers. Trump had declared before his departure that he would “discuss” with Xi US arms sales to Taiwan – the approved arms deal is the largest in history – a statement which immediately caused concern in Taipei and among Washington’s Asian allies.

At the same time, US imports of Taiwanese products – particularly advanced semiconductors – have exceeded those from mainland China in 2026, making Taiwan an absolutely irreplaceable strategic supplier.

Implications

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) produces 90% of the world’s advanced semiconductors. Any US concession on arms sales to Taiwan – presented as a gesture of goodwill towards Beijing – would redefine the security architecture of the entire Indo-Pacific region, erode the credibility of the umbrella of American security with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia, and would send a signal of strategic weakness with incalculable consequences.

This analyst believes that a real concession on Taiwan would constitute the most serious geopolitical error of the Trump II administration, with systemic effects on the liberal international order comparable to those of the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

The decapitation paradox — the phenomenon whereby the elimination or neutralization of a destabilizing actor does not automatically produce stability, but can instead worsen the power vacuum and unpredictability — applies here in reverse: if the United States — “decapitate” their commitment to Taiwan for transactional gains, they do not eliminate risk; he multiplies it. The power which abandons a defensive line does not buy peace; she buys the next ultimatum at a higher price.

Perspectives et scénarios

Scenario A (most likely, 60%): The United States formally maintains arms sales and the language of the Taiwan Relations Act (1979). China protests in a ritual manner. The joint statement sidesteps the issue with ambiguous formulations about “one China” that both sides interpret as they see fit. Status quo preserved.

Scenario B (possible, 30%): The United States announces a “pause” or “review” of an element of Taiwan’s arms program as a goodwill gesture as part of a broader agreement. Maximum alarm signal for allies in the Indo-Pacific region.

Scenario C (unlikely, 10%): Joint statement including explicit recognition by the United States of China’s “legitimate concerns” regarding Taiwan, in terms going beyond traditional language. Geopolitical earthquake.

Artificial intelligence, chips and technological competition

Facts

The presence in the delegation of Jensen Huang – CEO of Nvidia, the maker of the H100 and B200 chips that are powering the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution – is not purely symbolic: controls on the export of cutting-edge chips to China constitute one of the hottest points on the agenda. Beijing wants to reduce restrictions on access to the latest generation semiconductors; Washington wants to prevent this technology from strengthening the military and surveillance capabilities of the Chinese Communist Party. DeepSeek demonstrated to the world in 2025 that China can achieve levels of AI competitiveness with fewer computing resources — an efficiency that challenged the Western assumption that chip superiority was enough to maintain advantage.

In quantum computing, the United States maintains its superiority in raw power (Google Willow, IBM Nighthawk), but China dominates quantum communications (continental quantum key distribution network, own satellites). The American bet is that of “the offensive sword”; that of China, that of the “impenetrable shield”. In terms of AI, Beijing is pushing for the summit to result in a bilateral governance framework giving it regulated access to a technology that is currently denied to it. Washington sees it as a regulatory Trojan horse.

Implications

The CFR emphasizes that Beijing views the AI ​​dialogues as “an opportunity to expand China’s access to US technology and close the gap.” This interpretation is correct. Any bilateral “AI security” framework that opens channels for technology exchange without rigorous verification guarantees would structurally benefit China more than the United States.

The policy of “small garden, high fence” – selective restrictions on truly critical technologies – is the only model that makes strategic sense, but it requires an alliance discipline that the Trump II administration has eroded through its attacks on its European and Asian partners.

Perspectives et scénarios

Scenario A (probable, 50%): A bilateral working group on “AI governance” is announced. Export controls are essentially maintained, but negotiated trade exemptions are created for certain mid-range chips. Nvidia and other companies gain partial access to the Chinese market.

Scenario B (possible, 35%): export controls are considerably relaxed in exchange for Chinese commitments on exclusively civilian use, without effective verification mechanisms. Short-term advantage for US technology companies; long-term strategic risk.

Scenario C (unlikely, 15%): Agreement on AI governance with robust verification clauses and compliance mechanisms. The most favorable scenario for the international order, but the one which requires the most mutual trust – which does not exist.

Nuclear control: the United States-China-Russia trilateral proposal

Facts

Trump plans to propose to Beijing a trilateral pact to control nuclear arsenals between the United States, China and Russia. The New START treaty between Washington and Moscow expired in February 2026 without renewal, removing the last formal limits on strategic nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon estimates that China currently has more than 600 operational nuclear warheads and will exceed 1,000 before 2030; the United States and Russia each have arsenals of more than 5,000 warheads. China has in the past consistently rejected participation in arms control frameworks that would put it on an equal footing with the two original nuclear superpowers, arguing that its arsenal is proportionally inferior.

Implications

The proposal is politically bold but strategically complex. For China, accepting limits to its nuclear arsenal at present – ​​while it is in full quantitative and qualitative expansion – would amount to freezing itself in a position of permanent inferiority in relation to the United States and Russia.

For Russia, any agreement involving China at the same table has advantages (it multilateralizes the process) and disadvantages (it legitimizes China as a nuclear equal). For the United States, this is an opportunity to create a strategic security architecture, but it requires a patience in negotiation that Trump’s transactional style rarely allows.

Perspectives et scénarios

Scenario A (most likely, 55%): China agrees to “explore” the concept within a working group or as part of bilateral strategic consultations. Without concrete commitments. The proposal appears in the communiqué as an aspiration.

Scenario B (possible, 35%): China formally rejects the proposal; the subject is discreetly removed from the press release so as not to compromise the rest of the agreements.

Scenario C (unlikely, 10%): formal launch of trilateral negotiations with a fixed-term mandate. This would be the most significant outcome of the summit from an international security perspective.

CNN (United States): Live coverage from Beijing. Highlights “de-escalation” and the “positive and productive” tone described by leaders. Elon Musk: “Wonderful”. Tim Cook: gesture of peace and thumbs up. Jensen Huang: “The meetings went well.” Tone: pragmatic, focused on business results.

AP / Telemundo (Spanish-speaking United States): Emphasis on agricultural demands and the “Trade Council”. They highlight the “delicate” moment of Trump’s presidency due to inflation linked to the Iranian conflict.

People’s Daily / Xinhua (Chine) : Xi described the global situation as “a new crossroads” and proclaimed that the United States and China “must be partners, not adversaries.” Xinhua highlighted Trump’s “openness” and cooperation for mutual benefit. Tone: moderate triumphalist.

The Country / The World / La Razón (Spain) : Extensive coverage. Focus on Iran and the Strait. Mention of the complexity of the Spanish position – the bases of Rota and Morón are operational while the government keeps its political distance from the operation.

CFR / CSIS (think tanks, États-Unis) : The CFR headlines that “China will have the upper hand”. The CSIS foresees “modest progress” towards greater stability and predictability. Both agree that Xi is coming in with more confidence than in 2017 and that the United States has less structural leverage.

World Economic Forum (WEF): He presents the summit as “the most important meeting of 2026 for the stability of global markets”. He predicts that its outcome will determine the evolution of oil prices and international stock indices in the second half of the year.

There are summits that change the world and there are summits that prevent the world from changing for the worse. That of Beijing, on May 14 and 15, 2026, most likely belongs to the second category – and this, in the current state of global geopolitics, is already a significant result.

The systemic rivalry between the United States and China is not the Cold War. There are no two airtight blocks; there are two deeply interdependent economies – China buys soybeans from Iowa; America makes iPhones in Zhengzhou – competing for the architecture of the 21st century international order with commercial, technological, military and normative weapons. Thucydides’ trap is not inevitable; it is a risk that diplomacy can ward off. But dismissing it requires something that Trump-era politics lack: strategic coherence.

Xi Jinping comes to this summit in the strongest position of any Chinese leader in a negotiation with the United States since Mao Zedong. He absorbed the tariff war without blinking an eye; it diversified its markets; he used rare earths as leverage and forced Trump to lower his demands twice. At the same time, he has consolidated personal power without constitutional counterweights and has built around China a network of “transactional partners” – Russia, Iran, North Korea, the countries of the South – who are not allies in the Western sense of the term, but who reduce its strategic isolation. China has no allies; she has partners of convenience. This is a crucial difference: the solidity of these relationships is fragile, but their tactical usefulness is real.

Trump, for his part, arrives in search of visible victories. The war with Iran – with the Strait of Hormuz in a contained systemic divide, a term I use to describe conflicts that don’t fully explode but also aren’t resolved – has caused an energy price shock that is eroding its domestic popularity. Its delegation of businessmen – Musk, Cook, Huang – is both its greatest asset and its greatest weakness: it reveals that corporate interests weigh as much, if not more, than strategic interests in defining the position of United States negotiation. When Jensen Huang – whose company counts China among its most important markets – accompanies the president to negotiate export controls for electronic chips, the signal sent to Beijing is unequivocal: there is room for an agreement.

The greatest danger of this summit is not that it fails. It is because it enjoys a deceptive success: it results in a commercially attractive agreement – ​​purchases of soybeans, Boeing, Alaska gas; creation of a Trade Council; photo of the signature – while leaving the truly dangerous problems intact. The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed or semi-closed if China does not put real pressure on Iran’s jihadist oligarchy – and China will not do it for free. Taiwan will remain the shortest fuse in the international system, and any ambiguity in the wording of the joint communiqué on the Taiwanese question will be interpreted in Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul and Manila as a sign of weakening of American commitment. AI will remain the battlefield where it will be decided who will control the world’s cognitive infrastructures in 2040.

Europe – which is observing this summit from the strategic periphery to which decades of wishful thinking and industrial suicide in matters of defense and energy have relegated it – has much to lose and little to gain. If the trade agreement between Washington and Beijing is based on bilateral mercantilism excluding European interests, the continent will find itself trapped between two giants negotiating above its head If the agreement on Iran does not lead to an effective reopening of the strait, the economies. Europeans will continue to pay an energy premium which accelerates deindustrialization which I have long described as industrial suicide.

In this context, Spain occupies a position of structural incoherence that this analyst can only emphasize with the frankness that the situation demands: while the bases of Rota and Morón actively participate in the logistical support of operations in the Gulf, the government of Madrid maintains a discourse of distancing or veiled criticism towards Washington which does not resist the slightest examination of coherence. This is not Atlanticist maximalism; the point is not to pretend that the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. In foreign policy, inconsistency is not neutrality: it is vulnerability.

The Beijing summit is, ultimately, a mirror. It reflects the real state of the international order: it is not the world of the Cold War – bipolar, predictable, brutally ordered –; nor is it the unipolar moment of 1991, when the United States could dictate the rules of the game. It is a world of systemic rivalry between an established power that negotiates from its relative decline and a rising power that negotiates from its strategic patience, both aware that total war between them would be the apocalypse for each. The logic of mutually assured destruction – which we call MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) in the nuclear order – has, in the 21st century, an economic version: the mutual destruction of global supply chains. It is this awareness that prevents direct confrontation. And it is this same awareness that makes wars of variable temperature – which no one can win or afford to lose – proliferate at the periphery of the system.

Trump and Xi will have their photo taken, shake hands and proclaim themselves “partners, not adversaries.” They will be right. And they will lie. Both at the same time. This is the geopolitics of the 21st century.