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Current Affairs

How can Beijing prepare for Trump’s ‘drunken boxing’ style before he meets Xi in China

A temporary but fragile ceasefire is in place after US President Donald Trump pulled back from the brink of a wider Iran war.
For Beijing, as…

By Samantha Johnson / April 9, 2026
For Beijing, as it prepares for Trump’s high-stakes visit planned for next month, the key question is what the Iran crisis reveals about Trump’s governing style, and whether it has left him emboldened or simply more unpredictable and volatile.

The episode is the latest example of what Chinese observers call Trump’s “split” style: abrupt swings between conciliatory talk of deals and de-escalation; and aggressive threats to “obliterate” Iran or push the Islamic Republic “back to the Stone Ages”.

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With the six-week-old US-Israel war on Iran now paused and the January operation that ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro still fresh, Beijing is studying these episodes closely for lessons on how to handle Trump when he arrives in China in mid-May.

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US and Iran agree to 2-week ceasefire amid Pakistani mediation efforts

US and Iran agree to 2-week ceasefire amid Pakistani mediation efforts

Analysts are divided on how these events may shape Trump’s position at the Beijing summit, but most agree that the volatility reflects a familiar pattern of the transactional, results-oriented US approach under Trump.

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Yun Sun, director of the China programme and co‑director of the East Asia programme at the Stimson Centre, described Washington’s shifting and sometimes contradictory posture as “actually quite typical” for the Trump administration: maximum pressure to secure the best possible negotiated outcome.

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