"US-China Summit Leaves Trade, Tech and Taiwan Unresolved"
Taiwan Relations Act, 1979
US law allowing arms supply to Taiwan while maintaining a 'One China' policy toward Beijing.
Busan Agreement
US-China trade truce pausing rare-earth export curbs and tariff escalation, extended to January 2027.
US-China relations since the 1970s have been shaped by three recurring fault lines: trade, technology, and Taiwan. Washington's diplomatic recognition of Beijing came alongside the Taiwan Relations Act, 1979, which allows the US to maintain unofficial ties with Taipei and supply it with defensive arms, even while following a 'One China' policy that stops short of recognising Taiwanese independence. This dual posture creates friction whenever Washington considers new arms packages for Taiwan.
Trade tensions trace back to the tariff war of the earlier Trump term, which produced periodic truces without resolving the underlying imbalance. The US relies on Chinese manufacturing and critical minerals, while China depends on access to US and allied markets. Technology competition has since widened to cover semiconductors, export controls, and artificial intelligence. Beijing has used its near-monopoly over rare-earth processing as a counter-lever to US export restrictions on advanced chips.
Global AI governance has also developed in parallel. Since 2023, a sequence of summits, the Bletchley Park Summit in the United Kingdom, the Seoul Summit in 2024, and the AI Action Summit in Paris in 2025 co-chaired by India and France, has tried to build shared rules for managing AI risk. At Paris, the United States and the United Kingdom refused to sign the joint declaration on inclusive AI, exposing a divide between a safety-first camp and an access-first camp.
The 'three Ts' offer a compact way to track the health of the US-China relationship. On trade, the two sides periodically negotiate truces. The latest, known as the Busan Agreement, was reached at the sidelines of the APEC summit. Under it, China pauses rare-earth export curbs in return for a pause in US tariff escalation. The recent Trump-Xi summit extended this truce by two months, pushing the deadline from November to January 10, 2027. Both sides also agreed to avoid fresh tariffs on each other.
On technology, the frontier issue is artificial intelligence. Unlike nuclear arms control, where decades of treaties built verification regimes, AI has no comparable framework. …
Consider the following statements regarding the AI Action Summit held in Grand Palais, Paris in February 2025:
I.Co-chaired with India, the event builds on the advances made at the Bletchley Park Summit held in 2023 and the Seoul Summit held in 2024.
II.Along with other countries, US and UK also signed the declaration on inclusive and sustainable AI.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Consider the following statements regarding global AI Safety Summits:
1.The first such summit was held at Bletchley Park, United Kingdom, in 2023.
2.The second summit was held in Seoul in 2024.
3.The Paris AI Action Summit of 2025 was co-chaired by India.
How many of the above statements are correct?
With reference to the Taiwan Relations Act, 1979, consider the following statements:
1.It was enacted by the US Congress after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
2.It legally commits the United States to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of invasion.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Match List-I (Grouping) with List-II (Member countries) and select the correct answer using the codes given below:
List-I
A.Quad
B.AUKUS
C.BRICS (original members)
List-II
1.Australia, United Kingdom, United States
2.Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa
3.India, United States, Japan, Australia
Which of the following best describes the 'One China policy' followed by the United States?
China's dominance in the processing of rare-earth elements is strategically significant because they are critical inputs for which of the following?
1.Semiconductor manufacturing
2.Electric vehicle motors and batteries
3.Advanced defence equipment
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
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