Why Xi Jinping needs to tread carefully when he meets Trump

BEIJING (April 6): Nothing is supposed to go off script for President Xi Jinping in what is the equivalent of an election year in one-party China.

Enter Donald Trump, who rarely stays on message and regularly bashes China on Twitter. The US president will host Xi on Thursday and Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the first face-to-face meeting between the pair. On the agenda will be everything from trade to North Korea’s nuclear threat.

For Xi, the meeting represents an opportunity to establish a personal rapport with Trump and potentially stave off a trade war that threatens to make China’s economic slowdown much more painful. Yet it also carries risk: An errant Trump tweet or off-the-cuff remark seen as disrespectful could give ammunition to party members who want to thwart Xi’s reform plans.

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