Beijing may cancel September summit with Trump

Mark O'Neill August 18, 2026 15:29

The Chinese government is so frustrated with Donald Trump that it may postpone or cancel his summit with President Xi Jinping in Washington in September.

That is the view of Ker Gibbs, who was President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai under Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden and has worked in China for 40 years.

He was speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club on Monday to promote his new book “The Fragile Dragon – China’s Strengths and the Limits to his Power.”

He also held executive positions with Apple, Disney, and other technology firms, and served as head of technology and media in greater China for HSBC. He is currently a partner at Foresight, a financial advisory firm.

“Xi does not trust Trump, no-one trusts him. So the two cannot make a strategic agreement, only transactional ones. Trump likes improvisation, Xi likes everything highly scripted, all arranged in advance,” Gibbs said.

“In May, during Trump’s visit to Beijing, Xi’s staff was frustrated. Now they are very frustrated with the White House,” he said. During the May 2026 summit in Beijing, the two sides agreed in principle to establish a U.S.-China Board of Trade and Board of Investment, but implementation has been very slow.

“The worst nightmare would be a repeat of the way Trump insulted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on February 28, 2025. This cannot happen with a Chinese leader,” Gibbs said.

In the concluding chapter of his book, Gibbs writes: “With each passing day, we seem to find new reasons to dislike, distrust and disengage from each other, moving us closer to open conflict. Therefore it is critically important that we make every effort to understand and communicate with the other side.

“There are multiple ways in which direct military conflict could come to pass, with the most likely one being military action from the mainland on Taiwan. Short of war, two great powers can damage each other in all kinds of ways, dragging other countries down in their wake,” he writes.

Asked about China’s fragilities, Gibbs said that some in Washington overestimated China’s capability and ambition, which led to bad policy. “They believe that China will take over all our industry.”

China has a great disparity of income, with the great wealth of the high-tech sector not pulling the rest of the economy with it, he said. “This is a great challenge. Twenty minutes outside Shanghai, people are living on dirt.” The Chinese economy is fiercely competitive.

Some compare it to a fitness centre, where Chinese train and emerge strong and fit to take on the world. Gibbs said that a better metaphor might be the Roman Colosseum. “Gladiators (in the high-tech sector) fight to the death. Then the Emperor may throw in lions. The Chinese regulatory system is always changing and may shift on a dime.”

He blames much of the mutual incomprehension on the American side. “In high-tech, Americans are arrogant and think they know everything. The Chinese digital world is smooth and has transformed the economy. But Americans do not go there. They suffer from hubris and lack understanding. They have had almost three decades to understand China.”

In Washington, there is a wide variety of opinions. One Senator proclaims “ABC” – “Anywhere but China”. Other Senators have a proper understanding of this important partner.

He said that, in the U.S., racism was real. “The elite is white, of European descent, and has a deep fear of China. For the moment, Asian-Americans live well with other Americans. We are not targeted. But there is weird hostility, we live in a strange time.”

China is also responsible for the lack of mutual comprehension, Gibbs said. “Beijing does not want to be understood. It wants the world to accept its narrative. It does not welcome investigative journalism. The Great Firewall has sealed its digital economy of the rest of the world and kept out our national champions,” Gibbs said.

His personal story is inextricably linked with China. His father, a first-generation American of European ancestry, fought in the Korean War as a code breaker in army intelligence. The Army had sent him to the Defence Language Institute in Monterey, where he was taught to speak Chinese. He went on to become a distinguished professor of Sinology.

His Chinese mother was born into a well off, highly educated family which owned a bit of land. She managed to escape to Taiwan before Shanghai fell to the Communists in May 1948. She was 16. She later emigrated to the United States. Gibbs first arrived in China in 1985, when its economy was the size of Portugal’s today.

Published by Earnshaw Books, the book is available at Bookazine and costs HK$200.

Mark O'Neill

A Hong Kong-based writer, teacher and speaker.