The line everyone wanted to hear came from Xi Jinping, and the line that mattered came from Scott Bessent.
Standing across from Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and Jensen Huang, Xi said China's door "will only open wider" to US business. Hours later, a Reuters report said Washington had cleared sales of Nvidia's H200 AI chip to around 10 major Chinese tech firms - including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com - and when asked about it on CNBC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: "This is news to me."
That's the gap - the diplomatic language is generous, but the actual chip policy is still unsettled.
Xi's comments came through Xinhua, China's state-backed paper. He called US companies "deeply involved in China's reform and opening up" and said both sides have gained from it.
The White House confirmed the sentiment on X, saying the two sides talked about expanding market access for American businesses and increasing Chinese investment into the US.
Huang, a late addition to the trip, told reporters it was "one of the most important summits in human history," and passed on questions about chip sales.
George Chen of The Asia Group told CNBC that Xi's statement was a real signal, not just spin: "China does need to remain attractive for foreign investments."
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Here's where the daylight shows. Nvidia has been blocked from selling its most advanced chips into China, and the Reuters report said Washington had cleared the H200 - a step short of Nvidia's newest chip, but well above what's currently allowed.
If that's true, it's a significant shift. If it's not, it's a leak someone in Washington wants to test in public. So far, no actual H200 chips have been delivered to the cleared Chinese firms.
Bessent's answer leaned cautious. He acknowledged "a lot of back-and-forth" and added: "That's a Commerce Department function." Translation: he is not going to confirm or deny a chip deal in real time.
China hasn't been waiting. Beijing has spent the last year telling its homegrown tech firms to buy domestic semiconductors instead of betting on US ones coming back, and Alibaba and other Chinese AI players now have models that compete with US offerings.
The leverage isn't all on Washington's side.
Bessent also told CNBC that the US and China would work together on an AI safety protocol - "best practices for AI to make sure nonstate actors don't get a hold of these models."
That's the kind of cooperation that costs neither side anything and gives both a headline, while the chip licensing question is the one that actually moves market caps.
Watch what gets signed, not what gets said.
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