The Narrow Path to a Xi-Trump AI Deal

When Donald Trump arrived in Beijing in May, Xi Jinping was already on the offensive. The Chinese leader wasted zero time in rebuking his U.S. counterpart over arms sales to Taiwan directly warning that simmering tensions over the self-ruling island could ultimately cause the superpowers to “enter into conflict.”Trump acquiesced. He delayed a $14 billion arms package to Taiwan, said future weapons would be discussed as a “very good negotiating chip” with Beijing, questioned the island’s sovereignty as something “nobody knows how to define,” and stressed that he was not looking to fight a war “9,500 miles away”—all without securing any apparent reduction in Chinese military pressure in return.While this response alarmed many in democratic Taiwan, many people around the globe hope that Xi can prove similarly persuasive on another issue of grave importance when he travels to the White House on Sept 24: artificial intelligence.“Taiwan is not a priority anymore,” Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Beijing's Renmin University, says of Xi’s impending visit. “The priority is definitely AI.”In recent days, warnings from a whistleblower researcher and reports o...