美国参与谈判时其实处于相对弱势。中东战事消耗了注意力与关键军事资源，且与欧洲及多个海湾国家关系受损；维持对台威慑的关键远程弹药库存也被认为已严重不足。Xi Jinping 在这种条件下，没有太多动机在未获实质交换的情况下放弃稀土议价力。若白宫为追求政治胜利，可能会放软对台支持表述或放宽先进半导体与晶圆设备出口管制，但这类让步一旦作出，将会带来难以逆转且长期的战略代价。
仍存在可合作的空间：美国可受益于更多中国非战略部门投资，同时调整自我损害性的关税；双方在快速演进的AI frontier models所带来的骇客与恶意行为风险上有共同利益，也有可能在重启霍尔木兹海峡航行、促成乌克兰停火，以及降低太平洋意外军事摩擦方面寻求一致。对美国而言，当务之急是争取时间，提升本土晶片制造、稀土加工和弹药库存，并加速AI与无人机的军事整合，同时抽身中东纠葛。峰会评价应著眼于是否能稳定关系与管理不可避免的摩擦，而非单纯看大豆、交易额等量化结果；Xi Jinping正处于军队高层整肃与经济压力背景下，可能接受以象征性为主的峰会成果，真正的持久优势仍取决于美国在本土的能力建设。
Expectations are high for the Beijing U.S.-China summit next week, but for the White House the objective is straightforward: avoid making matters worse. The agenda is crowded with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupting China’s energy imports, U.S. sanctions against Chinese oil refiners, and a fragile truce on rare earths and magnets that could collapse at any time. The core U.S. tariff complaints—unfair subsidies, economic espionage, and related practices—have not been substantively addressed. At the same time, Japan, Taiwan, and other regional partners continue to face Chinese pressure, while mainland China is still expanding nuclear, missile, and drone arsenals even though the U.S. lead in AI is described as only a few months.
The United States enters the talks from relative weakness. The Middle East war is consuming attention and key military assets, and relations with Europe and several Gulf states remain strained. The stockpile of critical long-range munitions used to deter conflict across the Taiwan Strait appears severely depleted. Xi Jinping therefore has little incentive to give up leverage on rare earths without concrete concessions. In pursuit of a domestic political win, the White House might soften official language on U.S. Taiwan support or relax export controls on advanced semiconductors and chipmaking equipment, but those concessions are hard to reverse and would impose long-term strategic costs.
Cooperation is still possible in selected areas: the United States could benefit from more Chinese investment in non-strategic sectors and from reducing self-damaging tariffs. Both sides share risks from rapidly advancing AI frontier models that empower hackers and malicious actors, and both have incentives to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, end the Ukraine war, and avoid accidental clashes in the Pacific. The United States now needs time to strengthen domestic capacity in chip manufacturing, rare-earths processing, and munitions stockpiles, while accelerating military integration of AI and drones and disentangling from Middle East entanglements. The summit should be judged less by metrics like tonnes of soybeans or billions in deals than by whether the rivalry is stabilized and unavoidable frictions are managed; Xi Jinping, while in the middle of a military purge and facing economic pressure, is likely to accept a largely symbolic summit, with any enduring U.S. advantage coming from domestic performance rather than table bargaining.