It’s now in all the media. Lee Jae-myung will meet Donald Trump and Xi Jinping next week.

Both are billed as state visits; only one will function as one. The first will be a circus, the second will be a summit. The difference could not be starker.

Jeffrey Robertson

The meeting with Trump will be noisy, flashy, and theatrical – a circus where the clown wears a blue suit, sports a fake tan and has all the acumen of the bowl from a broken shithouse. The meeting with Xi will be quiet, deliberate, and steeped in planning – a summit where the statesman speaks softly, moves precisely and brings clear deliverables.

The circus

Trump’s return to Asia looks like it was planned by a bum after a casino win – erratic, happy-go-lucky and utterly without direction. His itinerary — Malaysia, Japan, then South Korea — culminates in a one-night stop designed for headlines, not history. In Gyeongju, he’ll deliver a keynote at the APEC chief executives’ luncheon, attend a leaders’ working dinner and fly out before the main APEC plenary.

That brevity reveals the intent. The visit is not about negotiation; it’s about optics. Trump wants a number, a handshake and a soundbite to broadcast back home. His team has been pushing Seoul to accept a US$350 billion investment commitment in exchange for tariff relief. The figure changes weekly, but the motive doesn’t: a quick “deal” that can be sold as a win. Donnie’s good ol’ Jersey slumlord shakedown like daddy used to do. It’s far from diplomacy.

In Seoul, officials speak cautiously, as if tiptoeing around an unpredictable storm. Meetings are described as “difficult to predict". Negotiators complain of constantly shifting demands. Even basic logistics have been confused – the White House announced the meeting would be held in Busan before correcting itself to Gyeongju. That chaos has become the signature of American diplomacy under Trump: loud, erratic and improvised.

His focus will be narrow: money, leverage and the illusion of control. Topics like tariffs, defence cost-sharing, or even fentanyl will be treated as props for domestic consumption. The best-case scenario is a handshake and a “fact sheet”, not a joint vision. The worst case is Lee getting roasted and flamed in a messy, messy, diplomatic debacle that will last for years to come.

It’s pretty much gone beyond Trump now. It’s institutional decay. US diplomacy once ran on preparation and discipline. Now it runs on emotion and marketing. What used to be the most capable foreign service in the world has been reduced to an entourage of handlers, translators and stage managers, each praying the principal doesn’t improvise his way into another crisis.

The summit

Two days after Trump leaves, Xi Jinping will arrive – and the tone will shift markedly.

Xi’s three-day state visit, the first by a Chinese leader in 11 years, is not an improvisation. It’s the product of long-term choreography. Every phrase, handshake and announcement will be calibrated to advance a strategic agenda.

Beijing’s goals are pragmatic. It wants to thaw the lingering THAAD frost; expand tourism and cultural exchanges; and stabilise the supply chains and critical minerals on which both Korean and Chinese industries mutually depend – tangible, achievable goals that endure beyond any single summit cycle.

China’s diplomacy, for all its rigidity, offers predictability. Xi doesn’t arrive to score a soundbite. He arrives to embed patterns – of language, of co-operation, of hierarchy. His team will come armed with talking points on the Korean Peninsula, rare-earth exports, and technology supply chains. Beijing’s approach to diplomacy is bureaucratic but coherent: every engagement contributes to a larger strategy of shaping regional norms, not reacting to every media provocation.

There will be no surprises, no offhand remarks that trigger a market panic. There’ll be no confusing bits about “love letters” and Kim Jong-un, or dashes for the DMZ and a quick photo op.

Unlike Trump’s theatrics, Xi’s restraint is itself a kind of power.

The visit will demonstrate China’s consistency – its ability to maintain a stable foreign policy even amid global turbulence. For middle powers like South Korea, that steadiness is valuable currency if you can fit the country into the hierarchy. It allows actual outcomes rather than crisis management.

Between the circus and the summit

President Lee stands between these two extremes: one unpredictable and transactional, the other disciplined and promising.

With Trump, he’ll face pressure to pay up – to turn alliance loyalty into investment capital. With Xi, he’ll be offered partnership – with the quiet expectations of respect and deference on specific, calculated and predictable issues. Both want something from Seoul, but only one will give Lee room to move. The Xi-Lee summit is a platform for negotiation; the Trump-Lee meeting is a test of painful endurance.

Lee’s challenge is to turn proximity into leverage. The APEC week gives him a stage to show that South Korea can engage Washington and Beijing. If he can secure even modest progress on supply-chain coordination with China while keeping US security guarantees intact, it would mark an achievement.

The contrast between the circus and the summit captures the larger transformation of world politics. Trump represents the spectacle of power – emotional, erratic and performative. Xi represents the strategy of power – patient, procedural and precise. One thrives on chaos; the other manages it.

In an era where the US seems trapped in a feedback loop of domestic drama and international fecklessness, China’s methodical approach feels old-fashioned – but, above all, effective.

China’s diplomacy may be authoritarian, but it is not anarchic showmanship. Its goals are long-term, structural and predictable, while America’s are short-term and personal.

When the week in Gyeongju ends, the contrast will linger. The Trump-Lee meeting will dominate television screens, but it will fade as fast as the next scandal. The Xi-Lee summit will barely trend online, but it will quietly alter the structure of Northeast Asian diplomacy – reopening channels, rebalancing priorities and reminding Seoul that diplomacy still means planning, not posturing.

In the end, Trump will leave behind headlines. Xi will leave behind plans to move the relationship forward. And that is why only after the circus packs up and leaves will the real summit begin. If you weren’t already aware, America is losing. China is winning.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/10/a-circus-and-a-summit-trump-and-xi-visit-lee/

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         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.