Amy Hawkins

No expenses spared to show him a good time and give him the kind of pageantry which we all now know that he really enjoys.

Every effort is made to make him feel special.

They gave him a private tour of the Forbidden City, which is quite rare.

They took him into rooms...

in this ancient imperial palace that US presidents have not stepped into before.

The carpet under his feet is almost always red.

Back then, China really wanted to impress Trump.

Trump was this kind of unknown quantity who China was keen to build a good relationship with.

We're in a very turbulent geopolitical moment and so it's coming at a very delicate moment.

Kind of China is going into this meeting with a slightly stronger posture and there's kind of less of a sense that Trump can be wooed and more of a sense of this is a businessman who we need to do a deal with.

It's a good question.

I think if you'd asked me this question about a month ago when the visit was first planned for, I would say this meeting is about the trade war.

So last year, Trump launched an aggressive global trade war, but one that was especially targeted at China.

which risked bringing US-China trade basically to a halt.

That trade war kind of reached a stalemate or a truce or whatever you want to call it in October last year when Trump and Xi met in South Korea.

Obviously, in recent weeks, Trump has launched strikes on Iran, which has completely kind of upended the global economy, has launched a new war in the Middle East.

There has been specific and explicit pressure on China to try and push Iran towards some kind of ceasefire with the US.

And now, as much as China would rather that wasn't the case, I think Iran is going to dominate the meeting.

China is kind of looking to build a holistically stable relationship with the US.

And the most pressing issues for China are trade.