China has laid out its red lines, what are America’s?

US President Donald Trump greets Chinese President Xi Jinping upon arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, on Sept 23.

PHILADELPHIA - While US President Donald Trump is Chinamaxxing, rolling out the red carpet for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first White House visit in more than a decade, US analysts are wondering where the US will draw a line.

An elaborate White House arrival ceremony is planned for the morning of Sept 24 for the Chinese president, with military bands and fighter jet flyovers. Then, the two leaders are expected to hold bilateral discussions.

While their husbands talk, Melania Trump has planned a visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art with Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan. The day will conclude with a ceremonial state dinner.

A day before Xi landed in Washington DC, China’s US Ambassador Xie Feng reminded the hosts what China’s red lines are during the visit. “China’s sovereignty, security and development interests cannot be violated, and ⁠four red lines - the Taiwan question, democracy and human rights, development paths and systems, and development rights - cannot be challenged,” he said in a Sept 23 op-ed for the official People’s Daily.

These are well-rehearsed Chinese positions that are often aired before, during and after visits by key US officials. Xi had outlined them himself in Nov 2024 when he met then president Joe Biden in Lima.

If those are China’s red lines, what is the US asking China to stop doing?

“The United States has not as clearly stated its own red lines, we could try to infer them,” said Kelly Grieco who studies US foreign policy at the Stimson Center.

The Iran war would be at the top of the list. China buys Iranian oil and reportedly supports Iran’s war effort. Analysts are watching to see whether Beijing offers to mediate and what it seeks from Washington in return.

A second would be China’s control over the export of rare earths, the elements essential in manufacturing everything from phones to missiles. But despite having officially suspended strict export controls on rare-earth elements, Beijing has constricted supplies to US companies.

Typically the red lines are related to China’s industrial policy, its desire to reunify Taiwan, the South China Sea disputes, and human rights, said Scott Kennedy, a China analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Those items are hard to find in the Trump administration’s approach now, he added. “Instead, they want an avoidance of war. They want to keep markets up, and anything that makes President Trump look good. Very different kinds of red lines that the US now has than in the past.”

Bhagyashree Garekar is The Straits Times’ US bureau chief. Her previous key roles were as the newspaper’s foreign editor (2020-2023) and as its US correspondent during the Bush and Obama administrations.