Kate Hawkesby

So we still don't know exactly what President Trump said in response.

But I think what was interesting looking at...

the readouts of these two meetings from the white house and both uh the chinese side is that china didn't mention iran at all washington did beijing mentioned taiwan a lot washington didn't touch on it so still you have these two leaders with great big vast differences so on the surface yes everything might have appeared friendly yesterday though the host being nice to the guest and the guest being nice to the host

But I think you'll still find that these are two strong power playing individuals who have vast differences in what they want and how they're going to get it.

Oh, look, I think that a lot of the work had already gone into play.

I mean, there'd been a sort of... You'd heard President Trump's language shift over the course of the last little while.

I mean, go back to Trump administration 1.0, and he was talking about, you know, coronavirus is the China virus and all this sort of stuff.

And what concession is he going to give up?

Well, he's not going to want to budge on Taiwan, but that's precisely the issue that Xi Jinping is going to want him to move.

So, look, it's a game of chess between two guys who are on the biggest stage in the world.

And I think what we saw yesterday was plenty of plaudits and it was good to see two strategic leaders

warriors, if you like, opponents of each other, essentially saying, look, it's okay to have differences.

We can try and get along.

And that's largely what the state banquet was about last night.

But I think at the same time, both want things, and they're trying to work out how to get it from the other.

So...

Yes, fine, everything went well yesterday.

Mike Hosking Breakfast, full show podcast on iHeartRadio, powered by Newstalk ZB.

Up the wall.

I mean, obviously, you know, Ted's a great man, an excellent eye.