The initial read of the summit between President Donald Trump and Chairman Xi Jinping is that it was mostly a snooze. Trump didn’t get Xi to cry uncle on trade. Xi didn’t get geopolitical running room. But when you look at the sweep of the last decade, I don’t think there is anything but one conclusion: Trump defeated Xi Jinping.
Go back to January 17, 2017. Just three days before Trump’s inauguration, Xi Jinping stepped onto the stage at Davos and delivered a full-throated defense of globalization and free trade. It drew almost universal admiration of the Davoisie elite. The symbolism was as explicit as it got: The Chinese Communist Party was pitching itself as the new custodian of the liberal economic order that America had built and that Trump was threatening to abandon. “No one will emerge as the winner in a trade war,” Xi said. But this wasn’t just a matter of one pilot taking charge for another. The whole ship was meant to be rebuilt along Chinese lines. The governance structures overseeing this order were “no longer appropriate” Xi declared.
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