New Delhi, May 16 -- IT WAS A tale of two summits. Meeting in China for the first time since 2017, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping committed to stabilising relations and suggested that they had reached new agreements on trade and other areas. Over two days of talks in Beijing, America's president and his Chinese counterpart projected an image of mutual respect. But divergent accounts suggested little progress on extending a trade truce or resolving deep differences on Taiwan, Iran and artificial intelligence. And the two leaders' contrasting rhetoric underlined conflicting visions of the relationship's future.

Mr Trump left China on March 15th following final talks with Mr Xi over tea and a working lunch in Zhongnanhai, a cloistered Chinese ...