AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump was supposed to go to China later this month for a state visit where trade would be at the top of the agenda. But then Trump launched a war with Iran, and now the trip to China is on hold.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It's very simple. We've got a war going on. I think it's important that I be here.
CHANG: That was Trump in the Oval Office last week. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith has this report on what the war with Iran means for the U.S. relationship with China.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: President Trump is still talking about the pageantry of his first trip to China eight years ago and says Chinese president Xi Jinping promised this one would be even better.
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TRUMP: I said, you got to top it. He said, I'll top it. We're going to top it.
KEITH: Now Trump says he's hoping to reschedule in maybe five or six weeks. Dennis Wilder is a professor at Georgetown University in the Asian studies program and was a top adviser to President George W. Bush on China policy.
DENNIS WILDER: For the president to go to Beijing during a time when American forces are in harm's way, to be greeted on Tiananmen Square with a million Chinese students and children all waving flags would be a very awkward look for the president.
KEITH: Adding to the awkwardness, President Trump's recent insistence that China help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
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TRUMP: They should be not only thanking us. They should be helping us. What does surprise me is that they're not eager to help.
KEITH: Wilder says this demand was a nonstarter for China.
WILDER: Chinese capability to be involved is very limited, and their motivation to be involved is just not there.
KEITH: China and Iran do have a partnership, but Ryan Hass says China is far more important to Iran than the other way around. Hass is the director of the China Center at the Brookings Institution and doesn't see the war being a major concern when Trump and Xi eventually meet.
RYAN HASS: Are the Chinese pleased to have to pay more, as the world's largest importer for oil, as oil prices rise? No, absolutely not. But if the United States becomes entangled in another quagmire in the Middle East and it diverts attention, focus and resources away from countering China, I think that that's a trade-off the Chinese would be willing to make.
KEITH: Sure, he says, China will try to use this American adventurism to portray the U.S. as unreliable and easily distracted. But in the end, Xi and Trump both want to stabilize the relationship after a year of bruising trade battles. Again, Wilder.
WILDER: The president wants a big, beautiful trade deal with China. There is no question about that. And actually, Beijing is interested in the same thing.
KEITH: And with Trump's tariff power neutered by the Supreme Court, he says the Chinese believe they have the upper hand in negotiations. Tamara Keith, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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