Washington and Beijing stage the Xi visit as the yuan hits a four-year high

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to discuss AI, trade, rare earths and economic issues when he meets Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng¹. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will attend the talks with Chinese officials in New York on Sunday, according to a statement from his office². He Lifeng is leading a delegation to the United States for trade talks from 19 to 23 September, after a video call with Bessent and Greer³.

Xi Jinping will make a three-day state visit to Washington through 25 September, with AI and the fate of the trade truce among the main items on the agenda⁴. Trump will be at the airport to greet Xi when China’s leader arrives⁵. The two economies are seeking to manage trade disputes totalling $414.7 billion in annual volume¹², and the two sides are reported to be discussing a cut to the tariff on US LNG ahead of the visit¹¹.

Why it matters to investors

The guest list is itself a statement about which industries are in play. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Citigroup chief executive Jane Fraser and Tim Cook are on it⁵, along with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk⁶ and JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon⁷. “This dinner is a big one, as China is the biggest of them all, and they all want a place at the table,” an official said⁶.

Beijing is assembling a comparable delegation. Executives from BYD, CATL and Xiaomi may join Xi’s visit; those firms and Bank of China did not respond to requests for comment, and Chinese companies have been told to prepare¹⁰. Chips, cars and batteries are the sectors on both lists, which is where any tariff or export-control movement would land first^5,10.

What to watch

The currency has already moved. The offshore yuan gained as much as 0.2 per cent to 6.6935 per dollar on Friday, the strongest since July 2022, after action by the People’s Bank of China⁸. A separate account put the level at 6.6967 per dollar as the central bank extended a run of stronger fixings⁹.

The concrete deliverables to track are the LNG tariff cut and the broader energy and agricultural deals the visit could carry¹¹, and whether rare earths and AI export controls are addressed at the Bessent and Greer table rather than left to the leaders^1,4. The size of the disputed trade volume sets the ceiling on what any single summit can settle¹².