00:00Let's get more on President Trump's visit to China.
00:03Yin Zhe Guang is Professor of International Politics at Fudan University in Shanghai.
00:09Professor, a very warm welcome. Great to see you and thank you for your time.
00:13Set out the landscape, if you would.
00:15I mean, how would you describe the current state of play between China and the United States ahead of this
00:22visit?
00:24I mean, there is a certain tension between two states over the past years.
00:31And among the Chinese populations, they have moderate sort of expectation towards this upcoming visit.
00:40And among Chinese policy observers, they would hold a slight sort of cautious optimistic towards the upcoming visit
00:52with the hope of bringing certain stability towards the future couple of months of world order.
01:00Well, it's a lot to jam into a few days. Trade, security, Ukraine, Iran.
01:05What do you think will dominate the agenda during this visit?
01:10As the Minister of Foreign Affairs in China just announced a couple of hours ago,
01:17the priority for this meeting is definitely world stability and some level of expectation
01:25for the upcoming couple of months in the world to stabilise the Middle Eastern region
01:31as well as the global energy crisis and potentially the Russian and Ukraine sort of their issues.
01:39These are all major sort of stability-concerned areas that will certainly come up in the conversation.
01:47Where do you think is the wriggle room for some kind of concessions, in particular on tariffs?
01:54Where can they find consensus?
01:58Well, I think the tariff issue is not necessarily something that needs to be discussed further
02:04because the expectations from both sides are rather clear.
02:08I think the concession will certainly be made on the amount of trade, the materials being trade,
02:15the type of materials being trade, and the amount of materials being trade between two sides.
02:22So, agricultural materials and energy coming from the American side,
02:28and probably rare earth from the China side.
02:32As far as the tariff goes, I think it is more performative rather than anything concrete to be expected.
02:39You're a seasoned observer of international politics.
02:43I wonder how much of an event like this, a visit like this, is already fixed in terms of the
02:49agenda already being resolved.
02:54I think that according to Chinese tradition, most of the agendas, items, have already been extensively discussed between both sides.
03:04And the trade negotiations, as it all happens very, very soon, is something that is almost like a wrapping up
03:14of a long procedure of negotiation.
03:17So, I would say most of the things have been said.
03:21And particularly, Trump is coming over for just over a day.
03:27So, not much can be achieved within that short period of time.
03:31Professor, hopefully talk to you more in the coming days for the moment.
03:34Thank you very much indeed for your time.
03:36That's Professor Yin-Jiu Guang, Professor of International Politics at Fudan University in Shanghai.
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