The following is an edited transcript of “ChinaFile Presents: What Happened When Trump Met Xi?” a discussion of Donald Trump’s five-country trip to Asia, with Daniel Russel, Bonnie Glaser, and Orville Schell, moderated by Susan Jakes. The panel took place at Asia Society in New York on November 15, 2017, after Trump’s return to the U.S. The Editors
Susan Jakes: We called this event at some point “What Happened When Trump Met Xi,” but we’re actually going to talk about Trump’s entire 12-day trip to Asia. And we’ll put the China piece, as Chinese officials like to say, “at the core.” This afternoon, President Trump gave his own assessment of the trip, in pretty lengthy and remarkably cogent scripted remarks, and we’ll have a chance to talk about your thoughts on his framing of what took place, how you view what occurred on the trip, and what it augurs for U.S. policy, the U.S.-China relationship, and the dynamics of the Asian Pacific region. To start, I want t