There was a vague agreement that China would purchase Boeing jets and more American soybeans. There was discussion about Iran and opening the Strait of Hormuz, and a nod to other issues, like cracking down on chemicals used to make fentanyl.<\/p>\n
But President Trump departed Beijing on Friday with almost nothing concrete to show for his two-day summit with President Xi Jinping of China. After months of buildup and a delay necessitated by Mr. Trump\u2019s difficulty in extricating the United States from the war with Iran, the summit ended with no major public progress<\/a> on the Middle East, trade, Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, artificial intelligence or any of the other myriad issues that are sources of friction between the world\u2019s two superpowers.<\/p>\n Instead, Mr. Trump seemed intent on a different kind of diplomacy, forging a personal bond with a Chinese leader who appeared far more focused on advancing his own nation\u2019s strategic agenda.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump toasted Mr. Xi as \u201cmy friend\u201d at their banquet in Beijing on Thursday and said he had \u201cbecome really a friend\u201d<\/a> when they sat down before the cameras on Friday.<\/p>\n A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, asked at a briefing during the summit whether Mr. Xi considered Mr. Trump a friend, responded with boilerplate: \u201cthe two sides exchanged views on major issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has hailed the summit in Beijing as a major success, highlighting the personal bond he says he has built with China\u2019s longtime leader. But the feeling is not necessarily mutual, as evidenced by Mr. Xi\u2019s more measured tone and the lack of clarity about any major agreements.<\/p>\n Orville Schell, vice president of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, called the summit \u201cquite insubstantial and aspirational.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have Trump dreaming out loud,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The mismatch shows the risks in Mr. Trump\u2019s personality-driven foreign policy, his bet that he can solve the world\u2019s problems and defend American interests by his charm and force of will. In Mr. Xi, the U.S. president faced a counterpart this week well versed in Mr. Trump\u2019s desire for praise and pomp, and with an apparent strategy for how to exploit it.<\/p>\n The result, analysts said, was a summit that illustrated the growing confidence of China on the world stage alongside a strategically muddled U.S. foreign policy under Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n The summit might yet come to be seen as the start of a shift toward a more stable relationship between the United States and China. But few of even the limited accomplishments that Mr. Trump spoke about were confirmed by China, while Mr. Xi set the tone with an assertive posture over Taiwan.<\/p>\n Experts say there is no question that personal chemistry between leaders is crucial, especially when authoritarian, centralized countries like China are involved.<\/p>\n Susan L. Shirk, a senior State Department Asia specialist in the 1990s, said President Bill Clinton worked hard to establish a rapport with Jiang Zemin, the Chinese leader at the time; he would keep his eyes on Mr. Jiang even during the translation of his remarks, Ms. Shirk recalled.<\/p>\n But Mr. Trump\u2019s lavishing of praise on Mr. Xi was different, Ms. Shirk said, especially in contrast to the Chinese leader\u2019s more restrained language. At times it was \u201cembarrassing,\u201d she said, like when Mr. Trump told the Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview during the summit that Mr. Xi was \u201ctall, very tall,\u201d and then veered into ethnic stereotyping: \u201cespecially for this country, because they tend to be a little bit shorter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was flattering him excessively and it was clearly not working,\u201d said Ms. Shirk, a professor at the University of California, San Diego. \u201cThe lack of preparation created this kind of void of substance in the meeting, and the Chinese stepped into that void.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has already discovered that the power of his personality has limits in foreign policy. In his first term, he failed to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons despite asserting that he and Kim Jong-un, the country\u2019s leader, \u201cfell in love.\u201d In his second term, he has failed to stop Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine despite a dozen phone calls with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and their summit in Alaska.<\/p>\n Still, asked to name the summit\u2019s most important achievement for the United States, Mr. Trump told Fox News\u2019 Bret Baier: \u201cI think the most important thing is relationship. It\u2019s all about relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds like something that doesn\u2019t mean anything, but it\u2019s everything,\u201d Mr. Trump said.<\/p>\n China, too, hailed the personal aspect of the visit. Wang Yi, China\u2019s foreign minister, said after the summit that \u201chead-of-state diplomacy is the \u2018guiding star\u2019\u201d of \u201cthe most important and complex bilateral relationship in the world.\u201d He said Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi spent nearly nine hours together and had been able \u201cto achieve overall stability after experiencing ups and downs.\u201d<\/p>\n But China entered the meeting with a broader agenda, while deflating U.S. claims of success. Mr. Xi warned Mr. Trump<\/a> about the threat of a clash over Taiwan, even as Mr. Trump said nothing about the island democracy until after Air Force One took off from Beijing. Mr. Wang also suggested that the achievements Mr. Trump had trumpeted \u2014 for example, China buying as many as 750 \u201cbig beautiful\u201d Boeing jets \u2014 were not a done deal. On Saturday, China said it would acquire some aircraft, but stopped short of confirming a specific purchase of Boeing planes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe working teams of both sides are still discussing the relevant details and will finalize the results as soon as possible,\u201d Mr. Wang said, referring to the economic talks between the United States and China.<\/p>\n The disjointed dynamic stood in contrast to Mr. Xi\u2019s relationship with the leader he does call a friend: Mr. Putin. Their summits have featured much warmer displays than the pomp in Beijing this week, including the time they made pancakes and drank vodka<\/a> in 2018. Their meetings often include joint statements, including the one in 2022, just before Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, that their countries\u2019 friendship had \u201cno limits.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Putin will visit China next week, the Kremlin said on Saturday. The announcement was a reminder that Mr. Xi still looks to Russia as a crucial geopolitical partner and helps enable Russia\u2019s war with trade and technology \u2014 a relationship that many in Washington see as a threat to American security.<\/p>\n