U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping as they hold a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

President Donald Trump is set to meet face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a high-stakes summit fraught with risk.

The meetings in Beijing, set for Thursday and Friday, could be a watershed moment for the adversarial superpowers, whose fragile relationship has been snarled up by a flurry of economic and political conflicts in the past year alone.

The lingering Iran war and a long-standing dispute over Taiwan are also expected to loom large over Trump and Xi's discussions.…