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By Micah McCartney
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President Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing was bumped to the sidebar of two of China's newspapers on the day of the U.S. leader's arrival for highly anticipated talks with President Xi Jinping.
In an apparent snub by the China Daily, the front page on Wednesday was dominated by coverage of another presidential meeting—that which took place Tuesday between Xi and Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan, a Central Asian country whose trade with China totaled $4.3 billion last year, more than 100 times smaller than U.S.-China commerce.
Chinese state media are viewed as another means of signaling for the Chinese Communist Party, beyond the standard lines of Foreign Ministry officials. Newsweek reached out to the White House by email with a request for comment.
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Another party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, also relegated Trump's visit to a side bar. Striking a cautious but optimistic tone on the talks, the headline translates to "China-U.S. Relations Cannot Return to the Past, But Can Have a Better Future."
"The wording sounds cautious to me. It leaves room for improvement without promising very much. You can think of it as: 'The future is available, if both sides agree,'" wrote Soyonbo Borjigin, a former Chinese journalist, in a blog post. "So I would actually translate it as: 'Beijing seems to be saying that the old relationship cannot be restored, but a more stable one is still possible.'"
Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday night local time to kick off his three-day visit—the first by an American president since he was last in the country in 2017 during his first term.
The two countries have cast the meeting as a chance to steady a great power relationship strained by competition across trade, artificial intelligence, the Iran war, and rival military buildups in the Pacific.
'Extinguishing others’ lights does not make one’s own path brighter'
The People's Daily also highlighted the importance of in-person meetings between leaders.
"China has always been guided by head-of-state diplomacy, actively promoted the exploration and construction of strategic, constructive and stable China-U.S. relations, and added stability to the turbulent world through benign interaction between China and the U.S.," the editorial said, echoing the language used by China's diplomatic corps in recent days.
Xi and Trump have both placed an emphasis on top-level negotiations, with Trump previously touting his "special relationship" with the Chinese leader and hailing the U.S. and China as the "G2."
The Chinese outlet characterized leader-to-leader diplomacy as a "compass" and stabilizing force guiding bilateral ties through the "wind and waves" of recent years' confrontations.
The coming talks are an opportunity to build on the progress from Trump's last in-person meeting with Xi in South Korea in October, the People's Daily wrote.
The two countries had been engaged in a tariffs war up until that point, where they negotiated a truce set to last until October.
When it comes to relations between the superpowers, cooperation beats confrontation, the People's Daily wrote, warning: "In this era of a global village, extinguishing others’ lights does not make one’s own path brighter; blocking others’ paths does not allow one to travel farther."
'Taiwan the most important issue'
The editorial also raised Taiwan as "the most important and sensitive core issue in Sino-U.S. relations."
China claims Taiwan as its territory and has been demanding the U.S. halt its arms sales to the self-governing island.
However, there are plenty of opportunities for "practical" achievements if the U.S. and China working together, wrote nationalist state-run newspaper the Global Times in another editorial.
While economic and trade ties should be the "driving force" of this relationship, other areas ripe for cooperation include reducing security risks associated with artificial intelligence, infectious diseases, transnational crime, and efforts to combat money laundering, the paper wrote.
China has become increasingly comfortable in its role as a superpower, and more willing to hit the U.S. where it hurts following Trump's trade escalations.
But while the stakes are high, analysts say the prospects are slim Trump will walk away from the trip with any game-changing deals in hand.
Update 5/13/26 at 10:58 a.m. This article has been updated with additional information.
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