China hawks seethe as Trump rolls out red carpet for Xi

China hawks on both sides of the aisle in the U.S. are seething as President Trump prepares to welcome the country’s President Xi Jinping for what is expected to be a lavish three-day state visit to Washington.

Unlike with other world leaders, Trump is pulling out all the stops for his Chinese counterpart. Trump took the unusual step of welcoming Xi at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Wednesday evening and will greet him again Thursday on the South Lawn for an elaborate arrival ceremony complete with B-2 Spirit and F-22 Raptor flyovers.

Critics are questioning why Trump, who has a storied history of slamming China, is rolling out the red carpet for the U.S. adversary.

“Had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States, based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Senate Arms Services Committee, said on the upper chamber floor Tuesday evening.

Despite the criticism over the state visit, many China critics say they are not as concerned about the optics of the state visit as much as they are about the policy developments that come out of the event.

“To me, the overall arrival and presentation is one thing. It’s certainly symbolic and can matter, especially for the Chinese side,” said Andrew Harding, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation who previously served as Special Assistant for Asia on the National Security Council under Trump.

“But I think from an American perspective, we need to focus on the substance of the agreements,” he continued. “What matters most about determining where the president’s position is is what is ultimately negotiated during the summit.”

Some critics of Trump’s handling of China even note that Trump hosting Xi is all a part of the diplomatic role presidents must play with other foreign leaders.

“This is one of Trump’s strengths,” said Marc Short, who served as Trump’s legislative director during his first term and was also chief of staff to then-Vice President Mike Pence. “He’s good at the entertaining and the hosting, and so he should do it his way.”

“I have a bigger political concern about cozying up to Mamdani this week than I do this,” Short said, referring to Trump’s visit with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) at Gracie Mansion earlier in the week.

Trump has certainly undergone an evolution of sorts on the issue of China.

When he first ran for president in 2016, Trump would repeatedly rail against U.S. dependence on China and call Beijing a threat to the U.S. economy. The president notably flipped on his move in 2020 to ban the app TikTok — which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance — for national security purposes. Trump later joined the app in 2024 and came out against efforts to divest from the company.

“In his first term, President Trump was tougher on China than any president in 50 years, from trade to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea to cracking down on decades of Chinese spying at our universities and beyond,” said John Ullyot, former National Security Council spokesperson and deputy assistant to Trump during his first term.

“Supporters worried about this week’s summit shouldn’t mistake rote diplomatic ritual for his record, and Xi, who has a long memory, knows better than to cross Trump in the final two years of his term,” he added.

A number of major issues are hanging over the September summit, including artificial intelligence, trade, the war in Iran, the proposed $14 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan and the potential release of other detainees held in China.

Republicans and Democratic lawmakers are already pressuring Trump to take a hard-line stance with Xi this week.

On Wednesday, the GOP-led House Select Committee on China rolled out its own video referring to Xi as “the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] leader behind some of the world’s worst human rights abuses.”

The committee’s chair, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), earlier this week wrote a letter to Trump, urging him to take a tough stance on several issues during the visit, including China’s potential role in Iranian strikes that killed U.S. service members, artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

And last week, Republican Sens. Ted Budd (N.C.) and John Curtis (Utah) teamed up with Democratic Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.) to sponsor legislation calling on Washington to prioritize securing the safe release of U.S. citizens wrongfully detained in China, including scholar Min Zin.

This week’s visit comes months after Xi hosted Trump for an elaborate two-day state visit in May. Among the deals reached following May’s summit, China agreed to purchase a minimum of $17 billion in agriculture goods from the U.S. on an annual basis through 2028 and resumed poultry exports from the U.S. Additionally, Trump said China also agreed to buy 400-450 GE jet engines and 200 Boeing jets following the meeting.

“Trump isn’t rolling out the red carpet in supplication to Xi, he’s demonstrating the magnanimity of a leader who is confident in his negotiating position,” said Cale Brown, former State Department principal deputy spokesperson during Trump’s first administration and chair of Polaris National Security.

Trump also made some headway on the issue of detained citizens when he met with Xi in China in May. Christian Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, whose children are U.S. citizens, was released by Chinese authorities last summer after Trump raised his case with Xi during the state visit.

“It shows that the president is going to defend the American people and that even as he is seeking some type of managed relationship with Xi Jinping, that we’re not going to allow China to engage in hostage diplomacy. We can’t normalize that,” Harding said.