Beijing may cancel September summit with Trump

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The Chinese government is so frustrated with Donald Trump that it may postpone or cancel his summit with President Xi Jinping in Washington in September. That is the view of Ker…

The Chinese government is so frustrated with Donald Trump that it may postpone or cancel his summit with President Xi Jinping in Washington in September.

That is the view of Ker Gibbs, who was President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai under Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden and has worked in China for 40 years.

He was speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club on Monday to promote his new book “The Fragile Dragon – China’s Strengths and the Limits to his Power.”

He also held executive positions with Apple, Disney, and other technology firms, and served as head of technology and media in greater China for HSBC. He is currently a partner at Foresight, a financial advisory firm.

“Xi does not trust Trump, no-one trusts him. So the two cannot make a strategic agreement, only transactional ones. Trump likes improvisation, Xi likes everything highly scripted, all arranged in advance,” Gibbs said.

“In May, during Trump’s visit to Beijing, Xi’s staff was frustrated. Now they are very frustrated with the White House,” he said. During the May 2026 summit in Beijing, the two sides agreed in principle to establish a U.S.-China Board of Trade and Board of Investment, but implementation has been very slow.

“The worst nightmare would be a repeat of the way Trump insulted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on February 28, 2025. This cannot happen with a Chinese leader,” Gibbs said.

In the concluding chapter of his book, Gibbs writes: “With each passing day, we seem to find new reasons to dislike, distrust and disengage from each other, moving us closer to open conflict. Therefore it is critically important that we make every effort to understand and communicate with the other side.

“There are multiple ways in which direct military conflict could come to pass, with the most likely one being military action from the mainland on Taiwan.

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