'Two-Track' Strategy Ahead of U.S.-China Summit: Trump Ally to Visit China, AI Pressure Intensifies

U.S. Think Tank Calls Daines' China Visit a "Positive Signal"

White House Says It Has "Evidence of China Stealing U.S. AI Technology"

With the U.S.-China summit scheduled for May 14-15 next month, the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump is pursuing a "two-track strategy." As Steve Daines, a close aide to President Trump and a China expert, is set to visit China, the White House has publicly criticized Chinese companies for allegedly stealing U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) technology. This is being analyzed as a strategic move to enhance the United States' bargaining power at the summit.

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on April 24, Senator Steve Daines (Republican–Montana) will lead a bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation to Beijing and Shanghai on May 1. At an event last month, Senator Daines stated that the primary goal of the visit is "to understand the innovation ecosystem being built in China," and the second goal is "to observe the infrastructure," adding that he plans to take a high-speed train from Shanghai to Beijing.

U.S. President Donald Trump. Photo by UPI

This will be Senator Daines’ second visit to China under the Trump administration’s second term. He previously visited Beijing in March last year, shortly after President Trump launched a tariff war with China, where he met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier He Lifeng. Senator Daines also has experience living in China for six years during the 1990s while working at Procter & Gamble. During the first Trump administration, he served as a White House advisory committee member during the 2019-2020 phase-one trade agreement negotiations, earning recognition as one of President Trump's "China hands."

The SCMP reported that although it is unclear whether this visit is directly related to the U.S.-China summit, Senator Daines is considered to have significant political discretion as he is set to retire from politics soon. Sourabh Gupta, a researcher at the Institute for China-America Studies, called this visit a "positive signal," referencing the 2023 bipartisan delegation led by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer that visited Beijing and met with Chinese leadership ahead of former President Joe Biden’s meeting with President Xi.

Dennis Simon, a researcher at the Quincy Institute, commented that if the war in Iran has not ended by the time of the summit, President Trump would be in a disadvantageous position during his visit to China. He said, "This visit may be intended to gauge whether President Trump’s negotiating leverage has weakened and to coordinate the agenda in advance. President Trump will need allies to assess the atmosphere on his behalf."

However, as Senator Daines prepares to visit China, the White House has criticized technology outflows to China. On this day, Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, stated on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that "the United States has obtained evidence that foreign companies—primarily Chinese—are conducting large-scale distillation operations to steal America's AI technology," adding, "We will take action to protect American innovation."

Distillation is a technique in which the responses of advanced AI models are used as data to train new models. Utilizing this method can reduce research and development costs and the expenses associated with training original AI models. It is used by companies to build compact, efficient proprietary AI models. However, concerns have been raised about the possibility of hostile countries using distillation technology to illegally replicate technology. On April 6, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI, Anthropic, and Alphabet, Google's parent company, are cooperating to crack down on Chinese companies attempting to replicate America's cutting-edge AI models.

This dual strategy by the United States appears to be aimed at strengthening its negotiating power ahead of the summit with China. President Trump has often employed a bargaining style in which he increases tension by exerting strong pressure on his counterpart, then pursues major agreements through direct leader-to-leader negotiations.

Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the United States, commented on the White House statement to the SCMP, calling it "America's unfair suppression of Chinese companies," and said, "China has always been committed to promoting scientific and technological development through cooperation and healthy competition."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.