The Chicago Council for Global Affairs

The Beijing meeting gives the United States an opportunity to push back on a Chinese narrative that worsens the bargaining positions of both Washington and Taipei.

But Republicans stand in stark contrast, favoring the Trump administration’s actions in Iran.

Trump and Xi meet this week with vastly different goals and theories about where the world is going.

The Iran war’s ripple effects risk obscuring festering divisions within the Southeast Asian bloc—most notably its inability to develop a region-wide approach to Washington and Beijing.

"It provides China with an opportunity to frame itself as a source of prosperity and stability—in contrast to the United States," says Council Distinguished Nonresident Fellow Evan Medeiros.

"The United States needs China to some extent more than China needs us," Council Marshall M. Bouton Senior Fellow for Asia Studies Raymond Kuo tells WGN's The Point.

"The sort of immediate and urgent crisis is Iran, and it's not the nuclear program, it's the strait," Council President and CEO Leslie Vinjamuri tells Bloomberg. "He will be seeking to see whether China will do anything to help unlock that."