This is not how President Trump wanted to arrive in China.

特朗普总统本不想在这样的局势下前往中国。

When he delayed his long-awaited trip to Beijing by six weeks, Mr. Trump was betting he would arrive in Beijing this week having forced the Iranians to capitulate to his demands. He anticipated that by now the shattered Iranian leadership would have agreed to turn over its nuclear stockpile, forgo its atomic ambitions and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The message to President Xi Jinping would have been clear: Chinese declarations of a superpower in decline were premature.

当他将期待已久的北京之行推迟六周时，特朗普原本赌的是，本周他抵达北京时，自己已经成功迫使伊朗人屈服于他的要求。他料想到这个时候，遭受重创的伊朗领导层会同意交出核材料储备、放弃核野心，并重新开放霍尔木兹海峡。向习近平主席传递的信息将是明确无误的：中国所谓美国这个超级大国正在衰落的论断，为时过早。

Instead, Mr. Trump will arrive on Wednesday with many in China wondering how he got bogged down by a far lesser power in a war he started. Iran’s nuclear stockpile is exactly where it was, still under the rubble of an American bombing raid last June. The Strait of Hormuz, through which China gets more than 30 percent of its oil and a bit less of its natural gas, remains closed, with no obvious plan to pry it open again.

然而，当特朗普周三抵达北京时，许多中国人都在疑惑：他怎么会在一场自己发起的战争中被一个远不如美国强大的对手搞得进退两难。伊朗的核材料储备分毫未动，依然深埋在去年6月美军轰炸留下的废墟之下。霍尔木兹海峡依然封锁，而且没有明确的重开计划，而中国超过30%的石油和相当比例的天然气都要经过这里。

But the war is also tricky for Mr. Xi. For all of China’s global ambitions, he has been unable and unwilling to come to the aid of Iran, a political partner and key supplier, and has offered no plan of his own to resume the vital flow of China-bound oil and gas.

然而，这场战争对习近平来说同样棘手。尽管中国野心勃勃、志在全球，他却既没有能力、也无意出手援助伊朗——中国的政治伙伴与重要能源供应国。而且对于如何恢复这条向中国输送石油和天然气的重要通道，他也没有拿出自己的任何方案。

The result is that this is a summit like few others. The world’s two major superpowers, eager to demonstrate their dominance, are both bogged down and uncertain about how the Iran conflict will play out in the context of their struggle for military, economic and technological dominance.

结果就是，这成为了一场前所未有的峰会。世界两大超级大国都急于展示自身主导地位，却同时陷入困境，对伊朗冲突将如何在双方争夺军事、经济与技术主导地位的大背景下收场，都没有把握。

The result is that the ambitions for this summit have been greatly scaled back. The honor guards and celebrations will remain intact, and Mr. Trump is bringing a dozen or so of America’s most powerful business executives with him, from Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX to Tim Cook, the soon-to-retire chief executive of Apple, to the top executives of Citi, BlackRock, Blackstone, Boeing and Goldman Sachs.

因此，对此次峰会的期望已大幅降低。仪仗队和迎宾仪式将照常进行，特朗普还带来了十几位美国最具影响力的商界领袖，从特斯拉和SpaceX的埃隆·马斯克，到即将退休的苹果公司首席执行官蒂姆·库克，以及花旗集团、贝莱德、黑石、波音和高盛的高管。

But the early hopes that Mr. Trump will finally begin to address the larger issues that threaten to drive the two nations into a new Cold War competition are quickly fading. The Iran war has been so all-consuming at the White House that, beyond trade and other economic issues, very little has been prepared in advance.

早先人们还期待特朗普能着手解决那些可能将两国推向新冷战竞争的重大问题，但这种希望正在迅速消散。伊朗战争让白宫几乎无暇他顾，以至于除了贸易和其他经济议题外，其他方面几乎没做多少事先准备。

The chief negotiator with China leading up to the trip here has been Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, evidence of how central Mr. Trump regards the bilateral trade and economic relationship. But turning to the Treasury secretary to take the lead would have been unthinkable in most previous administrations, where the secretary of state and the national security adviser — both jobs currently held by Marco Rubio — would insist on purview over the entirety of the complex relationship.

在此次访华前，主导对华谈判的是财政部长斯科特·贝森特，这足以证明特朗普多么重视双边贸易与经济关系。然而，让财政部长来牵头在以往的大多数政府中都是不可想象的，国务卿和国家安全顾问通常会坚持对这一复杂关系的全盘主导权，而这两个职位目前均由马可·鲁比奥一人兼任。

在峰会前的谈判中，国务卿鲁比奥退居次要位置，而财政部长贝森特则处于主导地位——这种做法在美国过去的大多数政府中几乎是不可想象的。

“For the first time since Kissinger,” R. Nicholas Burns, a longtime American diplomat who was ambassador to China under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., “the secretary of state and national security adviser are not driving the relationship with China.” (Kissinger also held both jobs.)

“自基辛格以来，这是国务卿和国家安全顾问首次不再主导对华关系，”曾在拜登政府担任驻华大使的资深外交官尼古拉斯·伯恩斯说。（基辛格当年也曾同时兼任这两个职务。）

That may reflect Mr. Trump’s own shifts on China after he came to office for a second term. He ran as a China hawk, denouncing its trade practices and accusing it of stealing American jobs and intellectual property. His first national security strategy, published in 2017, described China and Russia together as challenging “American power, influence and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” His second, in 2025, described them as potential partners.

这或许反映了特朗普进入第二任期后自身对华立场的转变。他以对华强硬姿态参选，抨击中国的贸易行为，指责其窃取美国就业岗位和知识产权。他在2017年发布的首份国家安全战略中，将中国和俄罗斯并列为挑战“美国实力、影响力和利益”，试图“削弱美国的安全与繁荣”的威胁。而到了2025年的第二份国家安全战略中，他将两国称为潜在伙伴。

That shift will likely be on display this week. Administration officials concede that their Chinese counterparts have refused to talk about their remarkably rapid nuclear weapons expansion, much less the new arms control debates swirling around artificial intelligence. Early hopes for a broad trade framework that gets at the critical issues tearing at their relationship — who controls supply chains, and what kind of investments each nation is willing to tolerate in the other — may get short shrift.

这一转变很可能在本周有所体现。政府官员承认，中方已拒绝就其核武器的惊人扩张速度展开讨论，更遑论围绕人工智能展开的新一轮军备控制辩论。早先那种希望达成一个广泛贸易框架、以触及那些正在撕裂两国关系的核心问题——谁控制供应链，以及各自允许对方何种类型的投资——的期待，如今可能也会被轻描淡写地带过。

Mr. Rubio will be along. And so will Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an unusual, apparently last-minute participant.

鲁比奥将随行，还有国防部长皮特·海格塞斯，他的加入颇为出人意料，似乎是最后关头才定下来的。

Of course, there will be announcements on sales of billions of dollars in American soybeans, which the Chinese need to buy anyway, and doubtless billions in Boeing airplanes and parts. Mr. Xi learned early that the key to dealing productively with Mr. Trump is to start with a full order book for American goods, all the more important because the American trade deficit with China has continued to surge, propelled by China’s overproduction of manufactured goods, which has prompted deflation in Beijing.

当然，届时自然少不了大笔美国大豆销售合同的宣布——中国本就需要购买，再加上数十亿美元的波音飞机及零部件订单。习近平早已摸清了与特朗普打交道的窍门：开局先拿出一份满满当当的美国商品采购清单，这一点尤为重要，因为美国对华贸易逆差仍在持续扩大，而推动这一趋势的是中国制造业的产能过剩，这也导致北京面临通货紧缩压力

As in Mr. Trump’s first term, the rest of the conversation is still something of a mystery, with much left to the private meetings between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi. Robert Hormats, who helped prepare for some of Kissinger’s first meetings with the Chinese, noted this week that “most of a summit’s outcome should be embedded in the draft communiqué, meticulously crafted by senior advisers and pre-agreed by the two leaders.” The purpose was to “leave no room for misunderstandings or differing characterizations between the two sides in the aftermath.”

如同特朗普第一个任期一样，会谈的其余内容仍然是个谜，很大程度上将留待特朗普与习近平之间的私下会谈决定。曾协助筹备基辛格与中方早期部分会晤的罗伯特·霍马茨本周指出，“峰会的大部分成果应嵌入公报草案中，由高级顾问精心起草并经两国领导人预先确认。”这样做的目的是为了“不给事后双方之间出现误解或各执一词留有任何余地”。

At the end of this week, White House officials say, there may be no communiqué at all. Aside from trade and tariffs, which are likely to dominate the summit, here is a look at some of the most contentious issues:

而白宫官员表示，到本周结束时，甚至可能根本不会有任何联合公报。除了几乎肯定将主导峰会的贸易和关税问题之外，以下是一些最具争议的议题：

A Growing Nuclear Arsenal

持续扩张的核武库

When the last remaining major nuclear arms control agreement, New START, expired between the United States and Russia in February, Mr. Trump said it made sense to negotiate a new treaty only if China — which now has the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, and the fastest-growing — was a party to a new accord. In January, in an interview with The New York Times, he said that he planned to bring that up with Mr. Xi, and that the Chinese were open to the idea.

今年2月，美俄之间最后一项主要核军控条约《新削减战略武器条约》到期。特朗普表示，除非拥有全球第三大核武库、且核力量增速最快的中国也加入新协议，否则没必要谈判缔结新条约。今年1月，特朗普在接受《纽约时报》采访时称，计划就此与习近平进行讨论，还表示中方对此持开放态度。

They are not. White House officials say that in the lead-up to the summit, China’s private position was the same as its public one: There is no reason to enter negotiations with Washington and Moscow until Beijing has an arsenal comparable to those of the two other powers. The United States and Russia each have about 1,550 weapons deployed, the limit under New START, but with the treaty’s expiration, they are both free to expand those numbers. According to the Pentagon’s public estimates, China has around 600 weapons, a number expected to rise to 1,000 by 2030 and ultimately to 1,500.

但事实并非如此。白宫官员透露，峰会前夕，中方私下立场与公开表态一致：在中国核武库规模达到与与另外两个核大国比肩之前，没有理由与华盛顿和莫斯科展开谈判。美俄各自部署核弹头约1550枚，这是《新削减战略武器条约》规定的上限；条约失效后，两国均可无限制扩大这一数字。据五角大楼公开估算，中国现有核弹头约600枚，预计2030年增至1000枚，最终将达到1500枚。

Mr. Trump is likely to raise the topic, one of his senior aides told reporters on Sunday. But don’t expect Mr. Xi to say much.

特朗普一名高级助手周日向记者透露，特朗普很可能在会晤中提及这一话题，但不要指望习近平会多说什么。

Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence

网络安全与人工智能

Eleven years ago, President Barack Obama and Mr. Xi stood in the Rose Garden of the White House and described what amounted to a first accord between the two countries on limiting state-sponsored cyberattacks. “Confrontation will lead to losses on both sides,” Mr. Xi said.

11年前，奥巴马总统与习近平在白宫玫瑰园阐述了中美首次就限制国家主导网络攻击达成的共识。习近平当时表示：“对抗只会两败俱伤。”

2015年，奥巴马总统与习近平在白宫共同宣布了一项关于限制国家支持的网络攻击的协议，但该协议最终未能奏效。

The impetus had been the theft of more than 20 million sensitive personnel records from the Office of Personnel Management. Yet the accord was already unraveling within two years, as China turned to outside contractors to conduct the attacks, and reserved the most sensitive operations for its Ministry of State Security.

促成这一共识的起因是美国人事管理办公室超2000万份敏感人事档案遭网络窃取。然而短短两年内，这份共识便开始瓦解：中方转而委托外部机构实施网络攻击，同时将最高敏感度的网络行动交由国家安全部负责。

In recent times, China has embedded itself into American networks with two very different kinds of cyberintrusions. One is apparently aimed at shutting down American power grids and water supplies in case of a conflict over Taiwan, another at sophisticated espionage that bored deep into the Justice Department’s secret systems, among others.

近年来，中国通过两种截然不同的网络入侵方式渗透美国网络体系。第一种的目的是在台海爆发冲突时，用于关停美国电网与供水系统；第二种方式是针对司法部等机构机密系统的精密间谍活动。

Now the artificial intelligence competition between China and the United States is making the cybersecurity problem even harder. If there is any technological development that should prompt both leaders to tackle this issue, it is the sudden shock of Mythos, the Anthropic model that has not been released to the public because it is expert at finding vulnerabilities in the computer code in a matter of milliseconds, speeding up hacking. That is a deeper threat to the systems that control everything from electric grids to missile targeting systems.

如今，中美人工智能领域的竞争使网络安全问题变得更加棘手。如果说有什么技术进展能促使两国领导人着手解决这一问题，那就是Mythos带来的突如其来的冲击——这款由Anthropic公司研发的模型尚未对外公开，它能在毫秒级时间内找出计算机代码漏洞、大幅加速黑客攻击，对电网、导弹制导系统等一切设施的控制系统构成深层威胁。

Mr. Trump is considering an executive order that would require all such new models to undergo a government review before they are released, a reversal of the administration’s approach so far. But American experts believe a Chinese equivalent may only be months away, and the only arms control that might work in this arena is one in which the two countries work together.

特朗普正考虑签署行政令，要求所有此类新型人工智能模型发布前必须接受政府审查，这与本届政府迄今为止的做法截然相反。但美国专家认为，中国同类模型可能数月内就会问世；在这一领域，唯一可行的军控方式唯有两国携手合作。

So far the only agreement in recent times on artificial intelligence came between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi, who agreed in 2024 not to allow A.I. products to control nuclear weapons. And that basic, common-sense accord took months.

迄今为止，双方近期唯一一份人工智能相关协议是拜登与习近平达成的：双方同意在2024年前不允许人工智能产品控制核武器。就连这样一份基础的常识性共识也耗时数月才敲定。

Taiwan

台湾问题

The White House says to expect no significant changes on Washington’s policy toward Taiwan, dismissing talk that Mr. Trump might be persuaded by Mr. Xi to be more explicit in opposing Taiwanese independence.

白宫表示，华盛顿对台政策不会有重大变化，并驳斥了有关特朗普可能被习近平说服、在反对台湾独立问题上更明确表态的说法。

Chinese officials have been urging Mr. Trump to change the wording American officials use, from saying that the United States “does not support” Taiwan independence to actively “opposing” it.

中方官员一直敦促美方修改官方措辞，从目前的“不支持”台湾独立，转变为明确“反对”台湾独立。

It is unlikely that change will happen, at least in any formal way. But Mr. Xi may be counting on Mr. Trump using informal language to speak about a subject in which every word is parsed and measured. Looming over the discussions: what would happen to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which makes most of the chips that go into building A.I. models and that power the iPhone and countless American weapons systems.

这种表述的改变不太可能发生，至少在正式场合不会。但习近平或许寄希望于特朗普以非正式口吻来谈及这一每个字都会被仔细解读和衡量的话题。笼罩在此次会谈之上的一大问题是台积电将会面临什么，这家公司生产用于构建人工智能模型的大部分芯片，并为iPhone和无数美国武器系统提供动力。

Supply Chains

供应链

Past generations of diplomats who dealt with China struggled with questions like how a non-market economy could integrate with a market one. Now the question is how to deal with two countries that believe they are overdependent on each other.

过去几代与中国打交道的外交官纠结的是市场经济与非市场经济如何融合这类问题。如今的难题则是如何应对彼此都认为过度依赖对方的两个国家。

Mr. Trump’s administration is intensifying a drive to hunt down and replace every source of Chinese supply for critical American systems, particularly weapons. That means building new sources of everything from rare earth processing to the manufacturing of many kinds of semiconductors.

特朗普政府正加紧行动，排查并替换美国关键系统的所有中国供应链来源，尤其是军工领域。这意味着从稀土加工到各类半导体制造，所有领域都需要建立新的供应来源。

China is doing the same, seeking to wean itself from relying on U.S. technology. And while the two sides insist they are seeking to “de-risk” rather than “decouple” their economies, these projects are clearly intended to prepare for a day when the two nations are in a deep Cold War, or a hot one. Washington’s limits on sending the fastest semiconductors to China, and Beijing’s on rare earths mined chiefly in China, could be just a start.

中国也在采取同样的举措，力求摆脱对美国技术的依赖。尽管双方都坚称目标旨在“去风险”而非“脱钩”，但这些布局显然是在为未来两国可能爆发的深度冷战乃至热战做准备。华盛顿限制向中国出口最先进的半导体，北京对主要产自中国的稀土实施限制，这或许只是开端。

But presidents do not usually talk supply chains. And that is unlikely to change.

不过，各国领导人通常不会深入探讨供应链问题，此次峰会大概率也不会例外。

“Gone is any pretense of solving the major structural issues at the heart of the world’s most important bilateral relationship: China’s mercantilist economic model, its designs on absorbing Taiwan and its active support of U.S. adversaries such as Iran and Russia,” Michael Froman, the U.S. trade representative during Mr. Obama’s second term, wrote last week. “As such, the summit is unlikely to alter the character and course of the U.S.-China relationship long-term. It is about managing for stability, not solving outstanding concerns.”

“已经没有人假装要去解决这个世界最重要双边关系的核心重大结构性问题：中国重商主义的经济模式、它谋求吞并台湾的意图，以及对伊朗和俄罗斯等美国对手的积极支持，”奥巴马第二任期的美国贸易代表迈克尔·弗罗曼上周撰文表示。“因此，本次峰会不太可能从根本上改变中美关系的性质与走向，其意义只在于维护稳定，而非解决悬而未决的关切。”