For years, Chinese officials denounced U.S. demands that TikTok’s Chinese owner sell its American operations as daylight robbery. Now Chinese state media are hailing recent negotiations to do just that as a win-win.
On Friday, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and President Trump spoke by phone, in a call Mr. Trump said had resulted in “progress” on the “approval of the TikTok Deal” and other issues. Mr. Xi indicated he would be in favor of a commercial deal for TikTok that benefited both sides.
Though the phone call did not appear to have sealed the deal as some had expected, the fact that Mr. Xi was even willing to discuss TikTok with Mr. Trump shed light on Beijing’s strategy.
For China, yielding on TikTok would be a way to offer the American president a symbolic win on an issue close to his heart — saving the hugely popular video app that he credits for helping him connect with young voters and win re-election. In exchange, Beijing would seek more room to negotiate on the matters it cares about most: tariffs, technology and Taiwan.
“There’s much bigger fish to fry,” said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington. “If China can use these small concessions to trade for a positive atmosphere, better U.S.-China relations, they will want to do it,” she said, referring to TikTok.
The Chinese government described the conversation as “pragmatic, positive and constructive.” On TikTok, Mr. Xi said he “respects the wishes of the company and would be happy to see productive commercial negotiations” in accordance with market rules and Chinese law.
Mr. Trump said the two leaders would meet during an Asia-Pacific summit in South Korea next month, their first in-person meeting of Mr. Trump’s second term. Mr. Trump also said that he would travel to China early next year, but Beijing’s official summary of the call made no mention of upcoming meetings.
TikTok may be a bargaining chip for China. The fate of the app in the United States, where it is deemed a national security threat, pales in comparison to Beijing’s other problems like U.S. export controls and tariffs, which could constrain China’s own economic and technological development.
TikTok’s recommendation algorithm is also less novel and therefore less important to the Chinese leadership than it was five years ago when the saga over the app began.
All that makes TikTok “an expendable concession,” according to Dimitar Gueorguiev, director of Chinese studies at Syracuse University. “Chinese officials have let the issue fester for years, holding it in reserve as a problem they could one day solve to defuse pressure from Washington,” he said. “A deal now costs Beijing less than when negotiations started, while still yielding the maximum optics of compromise.”
In Beijing’s calculus, the moment to use the TikTok card is now when China, with its chokehold over critical minerals, believes that it holds maximum leverage that it can use in a meeting with Mr. Trump.
“The Chinese side is much more experienced and has much more tolerance and is much more tactical,” said Li Daokui, a prominent economist at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “They know what the U.S. wants and they understand Trump’s negotiating style.”
To get Mr. Trump to lower tariffs on China, Beijing could offer a commitment to buy more U.S. soybeans — something the president has publicly said he hopes would happen — or purchase Boeing aircraft.
But Beijing would need to act quickly to make good on any such promise. It is late to bid on this year’s soybean crop and Boeing’s order book is quickly filling up. China’s leaders also face real risks in negotiating with someone as unpredictable as Mr. Trump.
“They understand that there needs to be a trade deal to pave the ground for Trump to come to China, and they want to make sure this is not retractable — that they don’t put their hearts on the table and the U.S. just stabs it with a knife,” Dr. Sun said.
“They cannot predict whether or not that will happen again, but they know if it does that will be humiliating for the Chinese leader.”
Still, Mr. Xi will likely go into his meeting with Mr. Trump next month with confidence. Far from being alienated by U.S. pressure, he has shown that Beijing has many friends. Earlier this month, he presided over an elaborate military parade in Beijing, flanked by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
Mr. Trump has for months signaled his interest in meeting the Chinese leader, whom the president describes as a “good friend” and has repeatedly said he admires. Momentum has been building for such a meeting in recent weeks, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaking with their Chinese counterparts.
The Trump administration has also taken steps seen as favorable to China. Mr. Trump allowed certain AI chips made by Nvidia to be exported to China, and in June, the White House told President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan not to make a scheduled stopover in New York for a visit that Beijing would have protested.
Chinese leaders “have seen Trump be willing to negotiate on issues that were previously nonnegotiable,” said Henrietta Levin, a senior fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
China wants Washington to loosen export controls on advanced chips and to cut back its support of Taiwan, which Beijing claims is part of China.
China hopes to show that the United States is “more eager for a deal than the other way around,” according to Ali Wyne, senior research and advocacy adviser for U.S.-China relations at the International Crisis Group.
Chinese officials have said that the outline of an agreement struck in Madrid earlier this week with their U.S. counterparts, the fourth round of talks in the last four months, goes beyond TikTok and includes lowering investment barriers and improving trade and economic cooperation.
During the leaders’ conversation on Friday, Mr. Xi called on the United States to refrain from unilateral trade restrictions that undermine progress made in trade negotiations. Mr. Xi also said he hoped that America would provide an “open and fair environment” for Chinese companies to invest in the country.
The last time the two leaders spoke by phone, in June, Mr. Xi compared the relationship between the United States and China to a large ship kept on course by two powerful helmsmen. He warned Mr. Trump to “steer clear of various disturbances or even sabotage,” an apparent reference to the more hawkish voices in his administration.
“There are important differences of opinion between Trump and his advisers. China will likely to seek to probe and exploit those differences,” said Mr. Wyne of the International Crisis Group.
The fact that the two leaders are speaking at all suggests to some that the relationship is steadying. Whether that continues depends on how the in-person meeting between the two leaders goes.
“Until then we cannot say for sure, OK, this is a relatively stable and predictable relationship,” said Wu Xinbo, the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. “I can tell we are moving in that direction but the major indicator will be the forthcoming summit.”
Pei-Lin Wu contributed to this report.
Lily Kuo is a China correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei.
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