2026-05-16
41 分钟I'm Dan Kurzfalen, and this is the Foreign Affairs Interview.
I think it is true that what makes Trump so interesting and hard to read and also sometimes hard to deal with is that he
himself is a kind of contradiction in which he has these sort of very hawkish tendencies.
And on the other hand, he has this sort of mentality of, you know, big leader to big leader.
We should be able to make a deal and work things out.
Erval Schell may be America's greatest chronicler and observer of several decades of U.S.-China relations.
We were extremely lucky to have him in Beijing this week at a just-concluded summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping,
far from the first encounter between U.S.
And Chinese leaders for which Schell has had a front-row seat.
I spoke to him on Friday, May 15th, in the morning New York time and evening Beijing time,
about how he read the interactions between Xi and Trump.
What they did and did not say about the hardest and most dangerous issues in the U.S.-China relationship,
and how this could mark an inflection point for the two countries.
Orville, great to talk to you on your Friday night Beijing time.
Trump started his trip home a few hours ago, but I realize you've had an intense few days.
It's been an intense and quite interesting few days.
The president took off in Air Force One a couple hours ago, and I think.
The Chinese and, I think, President Trump were quite pleased with the outcome.
You were, of course, on the last presidential trip to China when Trump went in 2017.
As you've watched Trump and Xi this time around, how does their dynamics seem different or the same to you?