More than half a century ago in February 1972, the ardent anti-communist American president, Richard Nixon, went to communist China and what seemed one of the most extraordinary diplomatic gambols of the time.

Nixon said with some justification that it was the week that changed the world.

Fast forward to now and another perhaps unlikely gathering took place in Beijing when Donald

Trump went to China to talk about trade, tariffs and Taiwan with President Xi Jinping.

But what, if anything, did the American president

achieve? Mr. Trump said they settled a lot of different problems. Xi spoke of constructive

strategic stability. Beyond these vague pleasantries, are we witnessing a bit of mood music

covering up the biggest strategic rivalry of the next half-century?

And what of other meetings? What of Xi with Vladimir Putin? Well, to make sense of all this,

I'm joined by Bill Hurst, Chonghua Professor of Chinese Development at the University of Cambridge.

Welcome to the bunker, Bill. Thank you very much. It's great to be here.

What interesting times we live in. Do we have any real clues?

I mean, beyond the kind of vagueness that I mentioned, of what on earth they actually talked about, Trump and G?

Well, if that week in February, 1972, was the week that changed the world,

this was an example of the world that changed a week,

in that we're living in a very different reality today from what I think had been the

cognitive template for a series of American administrations at least, and probably also on the

Chinese side. And by that, I mean that at least since the 1980s, not as much than the 70s, but since

the 80s, the United States fell into a pattern that I would describe as the fallacy of engagement.

An assumption was at the ready always that by increasing trade and other links with China,

somehow the United States would induce China to become

more like what the United States hoped or aspired that it might be. And that's obviously not the case.

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