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Taiwan is clearly watching this summit nervously.
There are reports that Beijing sees the moment, particularly as you and I have been discussing the fact that the U.S.
may be looking for an off-ramp.
Do you see this as an opportunity for China to demand some concessions from President Trump on Taiwan?
I say this because certainly in opening, even at the state banquet, President Xi really had quite strident remarks about what the risks are in Taiwan.
Yes, I think on that issue, Chinese are actually quite consistent in that.
Because the United States side offered several statements before that the U.S.
side wants stability in the trade.
China knows that.
China understands that.
Taiwan issue is the only issue that could bring U.S.
and China into a real war.
Here we're talking about not just conventional, but even potentially, once U.S.
and China are actually in the war, nobody dares to say that nuclear weapon can be ruled out no matter what.
So in that sense, China proposed, I noticed the language Chinese use this time, they accept American argument about importance of stability in the strait, but they add one thing this time, which is new for me, it's called the constructive, the strategic stability, it's called the constructive stability building.
So that is a suggestion to say we may need to find some new idea for you know for both sides to reassure each other.
Sometimes I believe during Obama's administration at one point they call it a strategic reassurance.
That kind of language of each other, you know both sides will be at ease, not leading to a confrontation.
So this is why Chinese keep on emphasizing.
Also in the context of the US had a large quantity of weapons on the table to be sold to Taiwan.
So this is why Xi Jinping is emphasizing that.
In this light, do you believe the status quo is acceptable to China right now on Taiwan?
Well, if the United States sticks to what is traditionally called strategic ambiguity, which is pretty much abandoned by the Biden administration, if you recall.
Biden basically turned this into strategic clarity, abandoning Nixon-Kissinger period of American strategy.
So if the U.S.
stick to strategic ambiguity at the same time, which also means double deterrence against China as well as against Taiwan independence.
That's what strategic ambiguity functions.
When you go to strategic clarity, it means war, basically.
So this have to negotiate.
They need, or the Chinese would hope, Trump administration to come up with some new language to assure Chinese that strategic ambiguity is still there.
Interesting that that will, in fact, present a change in strategy as far as some American policy analysts might say.
I do want to move on to what the Chinese opinion is of the United States at the moment.
We have an American writer in Shanghai, Jacob Dreyer, wrote in the New York Times that China has stopped looking up to America, that ordinary Chinese now see the United States as a cautionary tale rather than a model.
What do you think?
That's exaggeration.
I do believe the majority of Chinese still look up to the United States.
They know the history and the advantages.
I'm talking about the system.
The United States is perhaps one of the best that provide the best competitive economic system, competitive economic system, economic opportunities.
I live in the States for many years as a student.
I know most Chinese still quite admire American system, culture.
Yes, many of them looking at what Trump is doing, they now increasingly become disappointed.
Venezuela, for example, those kind of behavior, grabbing a president out of his bed, those kind of behavior certainly, no matter what you say, it's against the UN Charter, and not to mention Iran war.
So these kind of behavior apparently upset many Chinese as well.
But on the whole, I do not believe the idea of the US in decline, China in the rise, China would take over.
That is a small minority of people who really believe that, not a majority.