The first meeting between Xi Jinping, China’s president, and Donald Trump, his US counterpart, has generated intense interest across the Pacific. Mr Trump’s invitation to Mr Xi came earlier than expected but the US president has already toned down his rhetoric against the country that he believes has caused huge trade deficits and job losses for the US.

The US president wrote in a tweet that Thursday’s meeting in Florida “will be a very difficult one”. While there are bumps in the road, Mr Xi can still score co-operation rather than confrontation with Mr Trump if he orients the meeting towards the 10 following areas of co-operation:

● Expanding channels of dialogue and communication between the two governments. An early invitation extended to Mr Trump’s economic team to visit China would help, as would more exchanges between academic and business leaders in the track-two settings.