Trump's Beijing Summit: Testing Whether China Will Help Constrain Iran
President Trump arrives in Beijing Wednesday for his second face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and according to the Financial Times, he plans to press China on Iran and what the headline characterizes as an "Iran war." This is a diplomatic pressure play: Trump is asking China—a country that has never shared America's Iran policy goals—to help with a Middle East problem that Beijing has historically viewed as not its concern.
Bottom Line
Trump is trying something novel: enlisting China as a partner in constraining Iran. The problem is that China has never shared America's Iran threat assessment, and Beijing now has leverage because Trump needs their help. Watch whether this produces actual Chinese pressure on Tehran or becomes another example of Beijing offering vague commitments while extracting concrete American concessions. The Financial Times report lacks detail on what exactly Trump is asking for or what "Iran war" refers to, so the real test will be what emerges from the summit itself.