The optics of the summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping were carefully staged to signal parity between the US and China. Mr Trump, the first US president to visit mainland China in nearly a decade, was accompanied by an entourage of American CEOs -- including Tesla's Elon Musk, Apple's Tim Cook, Boeing's Kelly Ortberg and Nvidia's Jensen Huang -- whose businesses rely on maintaining good ties with China. They were duly given a grand welcome in the Great Hall of the People.
But the summit's (less photogenic) substance may matter more. If the meeting cements two outcomes -- a longer-lasting Sino-American trade truce and a path to reopening the Strait of Hormuz -- it will give the world economy something it has lacked for the past year and a half: a reduction in tail risks.
