CNBC's The China Connection newsletter: Five things Beijing wants from a Trump-Xi meeting

Suspense is gathering up of Thursday's expected gathering betwixt U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping successful South Korea, arsenic some sides look to resoluteness escalating bilateral tensions.

As Trump was connected his mode to South Korea for the last limb of his three-nation Asia tour, helium said helium looked guardant to a "great gathering with President Xi of China, and a batch of problems are going to beryllium solved."

"The narration with China is precise good," Trump said from Air Force One Wednesday. Beijing has lone confirmed that Xi volition besides beryllium successful South Korea connected Thursday.

Washington has been previewing imaginable wins, from delaying Chinese uncommon earths restrictions to a woody astir divesting TikTok's U.S. operations from its Beijing-based genitor ByteDance. Again, Beijing has been acold little vocal.

Trump's optimism reflects a acquainted pattern: the U.S. misunderstanding of China's capabilities and interests.

Here's what analysts told maine are apical of caput for Beijing:

The Trump administration's advertisement hoc attack contrasts with Beijing's accent connected stability.

"The Chinese privation fundamentally a much stable, much conducive-like economical and commercialized relationship," said Zichen Wang, probe chap and manager for planetary communications astatine the Beijing-based deliberation tank Center for China and Globalization.

He expects that could see "some benignant of ceasefire, truthful that determination volition beryllium nary much tit-for-tat escalations from the U.S. and past countermeasures from China."

Beijing's astir applicable inquire is for the U.S. to rotation backmost tariffs connected Chinese goods. The duties much than doubled successful conscionable 2 weeks backmost successful April, earlier some sides agreed to 90-day pauses of the duties, with the latest acceptable to expire successful mid-November.

But the overhang remains, particularly arsenic Trump has threatened that new tariffs of up to 100% could instrumentality effect adjacent month.

However, conscionable a fewer minutes earlier helium landed successful South Korea connected Wednesday, Trump said helium expects to little fentanyl-linked tariffs connected China up of his much-anticipated gathering with Xi.

"Businesses request to person certainty. There's no certainty close now," Cameron Johnson, Shanghai-based elder spouse astatine consulting steadfast Tidalwave Solutions. They "need to person stableness connected the tariff structure."

Meanwhile, China is hedging — arsenic its U.S. exports plunge, shipments of goods to different parts of the satellite are connected the rise. Since the earlier circular of U.S.-China tensions successful 2018, Southeast Asia has overtaken the European Union arsenic China's largest trading spouse connected a determination basis.

U.S. restrictions connected Chinese entree to Nvidia chips and different precocious American exertion person accelerated implicit the past 3 years. Now, it's uncertain whether Nvidia tin recoup the China marketplace stock that it says has gone to zero.

"What the Chinese themselves are hoping for is not to beryllium arsenic constrained with technology," Johnson said. "Is the U.S. done? Or is this going to proceed and proceed and continue?"

Trump connected Wednesday alluded that export restrictions connected Nvidia's fastest AI chips — the Blackwell graphics processing units — could beryllium discussed erstwhile helium meets Xi.

While Beijing inactive needs immoderate of the astir precocious U.S. tech successful the adjacent term, its apical leaders past week emphasized plans to physique up homegrown tech implicit the adjacent 5 years.

China is besides progressively wary arsenic U.S. commercialized and exertion moves statesman to ripple done its relationships with different countries.

Beijing is utilizing its dominance successful uncommon world materials arsenic leverage to antagonistic Washington's semiconductor restrictions. On Oct. 9, China expanded its uncommon earths licensing authorities to screen products — including precocious chips — with adjacent just 0.1% of China-sourced uncommon earths.

What prompted the reaction? Analysts constituent to a caller U.S. regularisation connected Sept. 29 that expanded restrictions to see the majority-owned subsidiaries of blacklisted Chinese companies — perchance affecting some 20,000 Chinese entities.

Wang from the Center for China and Globalization noted that the Dutch government's bid to instrumentality over Nexperia, a spot subsidiary of a Chinese company that's connected the U.S. entity list, came on Sept. 30.

And connected Monday, the U.S. commercialized statement with Malaysia added clauses barring Kuala Lumpur from working with "third countries" successful ways that disadvantage U.S. products, portion calling connected Malaysia not to "undermine" American tech curbs.

"Businesses are besides acrophobic astir that due to the fact that that could bleed into each antithetic kinds of situations," said Johnson, who added that Beijing wants to guarantee morganatic Chinese firms overseas are not chopped disconnected from planetary exertion proviso chains.

Beijing has agelong demanded that commercialized talks with the U.S. beryllium held connected the ground of "win-win cooperation" and "mutual respect."

That communal respect includes the U.S. adhering to Beijing's presumption connected Taiwan and South China Sea claims, Dong Shaopeng, a elder researcher astatine Renmin University of China, told me. He besides thinks the U.S. needs to spot that China's improvement is "reasonable."

Still, fewer expect breakthroughs.

"I don't deliberation this week's gathering volition spot results," Dong said successful Mandarin, according to a CNBC translation.

From photograph ops to model agreements, some sides whitethorn permission with thing connected Thursday. Whether it lasts is different matter.

China touts quantum computing ambitions. Top leaders wrapped up a intimately watched "Fourth Plenum" past week to acceptable goals for the adjacent 5 years, which see tech breakthroughs and boosting home demand.

Industrial profits surge. China's concern profits surged by much than 20% successful September, the biggest leap successful astir 2 years, amid Beijing's efforts to trim non-productive, "involutionary" competition.

Airbnb relies connected Alibaba AI. CEO Brian Chesky said Airbnb is utilizing Alibaba's Qwen AI exemplary rather heavy because it is faster and cheaper, portion OpenAI's ChatGPT is not rather acceptable for integration with the question booking platform, according to a Bloomberg report.

—Lee Ying Shan

The show of the Shanghai Composite implicit the past year.

Oct. 30 - Nov. 1: Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting successful Gyeongju, South Korea

Nov. 2: 2025 Hong Kong Digital Asset Forum

Nov. 3-7: Hong Kong Fintech Week

Nov. 5-10: China International Import Expo