Xi grants an audience to Trump

From the plane’s boarding stairs, the whole staging of Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States became a global semiotic challenge. Every gesture and every word by the Chinese president and his host, Donald Trump, were read in terms of the balance of power between the two great superpowers of the 21st century. The conclusions do not reflect well on Trump. The U.S. president waited for Xi on the runway of a military base on Wednesday night, a highly unusual gesture for Washington diplomacy that made it clear from the very beginning that the Chinese leader is not just another foreign head of state, but an actor whose decisions can alter the trajectory of any conflict. It is the kind of reception Trump also reserved for Vladimir Putin in Alaska. The United States has a president who professes admiration for men with absolute power. It is consistent with that inclination that during the state visit, three major U.S. news outlets were barred from the White House at Trump’s whim.

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