Xi Is Getting What He Wants

Once Upon a Time in the Middle East , a movie that premiered in China last month and is coming to the United States in October, is about a Chinese chef who moves to the Middle East to find work, only to become a savior for the locals amid the chaos of an American invasion.

This box-office hit has earned rave reviews in China—especially from China’s government, which has promoted the film’s themes of Chinese peacefulness versus American warmongering.

The film “casts US as invader, outperforms Hollywood,” according to a headline from the Global Times , a news outlet run by the Communist Party.

The message: America is the bad guy, and China’s job is to clean up.

Donald Trump should keep that in mind as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for his first state visit since 2015.

Trump may laud Xi as a respected friend, as he did when the two men met in Beijing in May.

Yet Xi is no friend of Trump’s.

Throughout his 14 years in power, China’s president has acted deliberately and consistently to undermine the United States.

His two-day trip to Washington now seems perfectly timed to exploit the weakness of his host and main strategic rival, lately enfeebled by rising domestic prices, plummeting approval ratings, and a costly ongoing war in Iran.

This timing makes the spectacle of the purported leader of the free world fawning over a Communist dictator more than just embarrassing.

Trump’s soft touch on China is widely unpopular in Washington.

In advance of a summit that is expected to cover AI safety, trade, and Taiwan, John Moolenaar, the chair ​of the House Select Committee on China and a member of the U.S. president’s own Republican Party, called for a tougher line.

Xi, mindful that American foreign policy can change dramatically with elections, seems to see the Trump administration as a potentially brief window of opportunity to expand Chinese influence.

While Trump has been distracted by the Iran war and White House redecorations, Xi has remained focused on enhancing China’s technological and industrial might and diplomatically asserting Beijing’s global leadership.