STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
OK. Let's pull back the curtain on how this part of a summit works. Two world leaders hold a private meeting. Dozens or even hundreds of reporters are waiting around. And then the presidential staffs each release their summaries of what was said. Neither read out as a transcript. They tend to say different things, at least in this case. Susan Thornton knows this process very well. She is a former U.S. assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs. She's now at Yale. Welcome to the program.
SUSAN THORNTON: Thank you.
INSKEEP: So where does a statement like the ones we're talking about even come from? What's the normal process?
THORNTON: Yeah, the normal process would be that the two teams, the U.S. and Chinese, get together before the summit meeting and the preparatory talks and sort of hammer out what the things are the two teams are - the two presidents are going to talk about, and what are the things that they're going to try to agree on and promote as the outcome of the visit. We know, in this case, that didn't really happen. In fact, the Chinese statement mentions that the, you know, two economic teams met yesterday but need to make further progress. So the two statements this time are a statement sort of, of U.S. kind of highlighted things that they were hoping and said need to be worked on. And then the Chinese side, which, as Jennifer said, is much more vague and talks about the things that they prioritize, like Taiwan.
INSKEEP: I'm fascinated. You're saying that this is normally such an elaborate and drawn-out process, that there are staffs deciding before the president's meet what they're going to say, and even working out the statement of what they said before they even say it, presuming they actually say it in the room. So that's the normal elaborate process. And they might even coordinate to an extent. In this case, it seems they didn't.
And President Xi made this statement about Taiwan. Now, as someone who pays attention to this as much as I can, I didn't see anything particularly new in this warning. A lot of words and metaphors that President Xi has used before. But what do you make of it?
THORNTON: Right. The Chinese statement is quite similar to previous statements, maybe a little bit more strident. But it's very similar to sort of warnings they've made in the past. And the U.S. statement, of course, doesn't mention Taiwan at all. There was some speculation before this meeting that perhaps President Trump would say something new about Taiwan. From these readouts, it doesn't appear that much new has happened on Taiwan here, which I think...
INSKEEP: Do you...
THORNTON: ...Will bring great relief to those in Taiwan watching this.
INSKEEP: Oh, that's very interesting. So they will see the same thing that's been said. Do you nevertheless attribute significance to the fact that Xi would say this or claim to - that staff would say that he said this about Taiwan at a high-profile moment?
THORNTON: They usually do put in something about this. This is China's biggest issue. So, of course, for their domestic audience, they want to make clear that they've stressed this, and it was a priority, and that President Xi raised it. So I interpret it in that lens. So I think there's really - you know, it's interesting the Chinese press is obviously focused on this issue and is highlighting it in their versions of sort of reporting on the readout. But I think it's for that domestic audience reason mostly.
INSKEEP: OK. So the U.S. statement says that the two presidents talked about expanding access to Chinese markets for U.S. goods, that they talked about keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, that they talked about Iran more broadly. What do you make of what's in the U.S. statement?
THORNTON: Yeah, it's clear that the Iran issue is a major issue on the U.S. side. I think, as Jennifer said, there's not much new there. But they do - this is the only place where it says that the two presidents agreed on something, right? As opposed to we need to work more on this, or we agreed in a general kind of making things stable and constructive.
So they said that the, you know, Strait of Hormuz must remain open. The two sides agreed on that. And that they agreed that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And those are not new positions from China. But the fact that, you know, they talked about it, and they said, you know - looking for sort of some agreement there that they can announce. Clearly, this is a priority issue, obviously, for President Trump.
INSKEEP: Finally, very briefly, you alluded to this already. The Chinese statement says that the two sides were having negotiations as recently as yesterday that seemed to be going well. Is it odd, though, that the day before the summit, we have confirmation that they were still negotiating over things and it's not clear that they agreed on anything?
THORNTON: Yeah, just briefly, this is why the so-called board of trade announcement, people were looking for that. There's a need in U.S.-China economic relations to have a continuous, ongoing negotiating mechanism because issues are so complicated and difficult. And it's hard to tell from this whether they agreed on having that mechanism set up or not, but that was something that I think both sides were looking for, so I hope so.
INSKEEP: Susan Thornton of Yale. Thanks so much.
THORNTON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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