In expert, political science, and blogging circles, it has become customary to deliver instant verdicts on geopolitical events. The main thesis of most commentators following the recent meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping was: «A pretty picture, gilding, a pompous dinner, they showed off a granite helipad, but there were zero results.»

Such analysis demonstrates a colossal lack of understanding of how the modern global economy is structured, how the era and architecture of artificial intelligence are being built, and how new mechanisms for managing global processes are taking shape.

The Illusion of «Quick Fixes»: AI and the New Technological Reality

Many express genuine surprise: «How could this be? They discussed artificial intelligence and didn’t agree on anything concrete in two days!»

Believing that two leaders can sign a paper behind closed curtains that defines the vector of AI for decades to come is a clear sign of analytical naivety.

The development and deployment of artificial intelligence is an industry involving hundreds of the largest corporations, with the market capitalization and revenues of key players measured in hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars. Every single one of these companies guards its algorithms with the utmost secrecy.

Regulating and rewiring the rules of the game in the AI sphere is a task dozens of times more complex than settling any local military conflict or geopolitical crisis.

Detailed regulations are never settled «out of nowhere» at negotiations of this level. Instead, framework principles of interaction are established. A summit is a starting point, after which specialized working groups are formed, drawing in experts, relevant government agencies, and the executive leadership of the tech sector.

Behind the Boundaries of the States: The Era of Transnational Corporations

The fundamental error of most analysts is attempting to view the world through the lens of an outdated Westphalian system, where states and bureaucrats are supposedly the main actors of power.

Today, the world is moving deeper into a model where transnational corporations—primarily public companies—are becoming the key players. In this environment:

• The powerful groups in state apparatus and bureaucracy attempt to retain control, preserve official clans, and maintain corruption flows.
• Leaders of major powers, including Trump and Xi, are forced to express and balance the interests of these very global industrial and technological conglomerates.

A telling detail of the summit and the official dinner was the meeting featuring the heads of major tech giants. This was not an entertaining protocol fluff piece, but a recognition of fact: modern manufacturing and technology are so tightly intertwined that they cannot be severed by a single bureaucrat’s decision. When key American entrepreneurs have factories in the PRC and headquarters in the US, decisions on «trade wars» require interaction as well as lengthy, fine-tuned coordination.

Historical Retrospective: A Missed Opportunity and the Chinese Breakthrough

This kind of global cooperation could have once unfolded on the basis of the former USSR’s infrastructure. In the early 1990s, there were concrete projects to establish high-tech production (including civilian and military industrial plants).

However, rampant corruption in Yeltsin’s Russia, clan interests, and the criminalization of Russia’s power structures and security services at the time put an end to those plans. As a result, transnational capital was forced to head to China, where a massive manufacturing base was constructed that serves the entire global market today.

Corporate Capitalism and Socialist Collectives

A careful analysis of the economic models of the United States and China leads to a paradoxical conclusion:

• The American model of public corporations: Company shares are held by millions of private investors and funds. This is an evolved form of collective ownership of production—a socialization of capital in which the shareholder body has a guaranteed right to monitor and replace executive management.
• The Chinese synthesis: China combined planning mechanisms and the experience of building production cooperatives (artels), partly borrowed from the Soviet Union, with Western market capital.

When Trump speaks of an alliance or a tough dialogue with «Communist China,» he is dealing not with an abstract ideology, but with a gigantic, unified corporate system that serves as the foundation of the entire global economy.

The Problem of the Post-Soviet Space

While the US and China build flexible hybrid systems, attempts are being made in the post-Soviet space to integrate into the global market through inefficient state-owned corporations. This is an outdated, lumbering form that blocks initiative and stifles the growth of the technology sector.

Both Ukraine and Russia face a fundamental barrier: the bureaucratic apparatus and state monopolies extinguish any potential, despite the availability of human resources, intellect, and scientific personnel.

The Psychology of Negotiations: What Did Trump’s Words About «Granite» Mean?

Commentators mocked Trump’s remark that Xi Jinping «really likes granite,» seeing it as nothing more than a superficial joke. But in high-level politics, there are no accidental metaphors.

Granite and construction are familiar territory for both Trump (a major real estate developer) and Xi Jinping, who spent a significant portion of his career in a region where the granite industry and large-scale infrastructure construction formed the backbone of the economy.

When Trump publicly draws attention to this detail after demonstrating the White House’s new helipad and facilities, he sends a non-verbal signal: «I see before me an expert, a pragmatist, and someone who deeply understands the practical, material substance of things.»

The summit in Washington was neither a «failure» nor a «meaningless formality.» It marks the beginning of a highly complex overhaul of the world order, in which trade agreements, artificial intelligence, and financial flows are being fundamentally reconfigured. And this work will be carried out not by bureaucrats behind closed doors, but through a long, tech-driven process involving the transnational corporate sector.