Thursday and Friday marked the long-awaited first face-to-face meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Convened at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in Florida, the meeting was billed as an informal relationship-building exercise and was designed to frame the relationship in the best possible light. Yet US military action in Syria would largely derail that narrative, despite glowing comments from both Trump and Xi.

Both Xi and Trump brought their top officials to the meeting. On the Chinese side, Xi was joined by China’s top diplomat, State Councilor Yang Jiechi; Foreign Minister Wang Yi; Vice Premier Wang Yang, the rough counterpart to the US treasury secretary; and Wang Huning, director of the policy research office of the Communist Party’s Central Committee and one of Xi’s top economic advisers.

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