Xi Jinping's Tense State Visit

Xi arrives just as both countries are experiencing a wave of nationalism. Last month, after a drop in China’s stock markets and a devaluation of its currency triggered a plunge on Wall Street, Donald Trump, the Republican Presidential front-runner, called on President Obama to cancel Xi’s gala and “get him a McDonald’s hamburger.” Trump also demanded “a big uncoupling” of the two economies, and tariffs on Chinese imports of up to twelve per cent. “They want our people to starve,” he told Fox News. “They’re taking our business away.” Despite the fact that China is now America’s third-largest export market, other candidates followed suit. But the impact of the campaign rhetoric has been limited in China, where hardly anyone had previously heard of Trump, or Chuanpu, as he is known in Mandarin, and the Global Times, a state-run newspaper, reassured its readers that, during election seasons, American politicians frequently discover that criticizing China is “not only good for shock value but also safe for them; candidates can treat it as a useful tool with no consequences.”