A White House official confirmed on Friday (February 20) that US President Donald Trump will visit China from March 31 to April 2.ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO“That’s going to be a wild one,” Trump told foreign leaders who were in Washington on Thursday for a meeting. “I said we have to put on the biggest display you’ve ever had in the history of China.”It will be Trump’s second meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in his second term, and the first bilateral trip. They earlier met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in South Korea in October 2025. The backdrop to the trip includes not just tariff-related tensions, but also the larger geopolitical rivalry, covering technology and other domains.This rivalry also manifested in the biggest global sporting event of this month, the Winter Olympics in Italy. Two young Chinese-American women, Eileen Gu and Alysa Liu, and their choices to compete for China and the United States, respectively, invited comparisons on nationalistic lines in the US. Vice President JD Vance also commented on the matter.Here is a closer look at these developments:While addressing foreign leaders on Thursday, Trump insisted that he shared a very good relationship with Xi and that he was treated to grand displays during his last visit to China in 2017. That visit, also spanning three days, came after Xi had visited the US in April that year.UPSHOT: The visit points to a positive turn in the bilateral relationship, compared to how things stood a year ago, when Trump had just assumed office. The subsequent tariff war followed a fragile truce that holds, but with fundamental trade issues still unresolved.In fact, the topic of trade was broached even during the 2017 trip. A statement from the US government said, “President Trump underscored the importance of rebalancing the bilateral economic relationship, emphasizing the need for a more equitable relationship that strengthens American jobs and exports… He reiterated that the United States will use all available trade remedies to create a level playing field for United States workers and businesses.” In Trump’s second term, tariffs have been framed as just that — a trade “remedy.”Story continues below this adLast edition of China This Week | Trump’s ‘excellent’ call with Xi, and US claims of secret Chinese nuclear testAdd to that the distrust that continues to plague the ties. Earlier this month, the US Department of Defense included major Chinese companies, like the search engine Baidu, carmaker BYD, and e-commerce giant Alibaba, on a list of “Chinese military companies”. However, it quickly removed them from the list.The list mentions companies considered part of what the US government calls the “Military-Civil Fusion” or MCF, a national strategy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to develop the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into a “world class military” by 2049. “As the name suggests, a key part of MCF is the elimination of barriers between China’s civilian research and commercial sectors, and its military and defense industrial sectors,” an earlier US government report said.Alibaba later released a statement denying any participation in such a strategy, but such sources of frictions are entirely expected given the current state of the ties.2. A tale of two OlympiansThe controversy involves two Olympians with somewhat similar backgrounds. Eileen Gu (or Gu Ailing in Chinese), 22, is the US-born daughter of a Chinese mother, while the 20-year-old Alysa Liu’s father is Chinese.Story continues below this adGu has been dubbed the “most decorated freestyle skier in the history of the Games,” while Liu is a figure skater who retired from the sport at 16, only to make a historic comeback two years ago. Both of them participated in the Winter Olympics in Italy and won gold medals.When Gu recently defended a fellow athlete over his political views, several Trump supporters and Republicans criticised her, also targeting for her choice to represent China. JD Vance said in a not-too-veiled comment, “I’m going to root for American athletes and I think part of that is people who identify themselves as Americans. That’s who I am rooting for.” Gu responded, “I’m flattered. Thanks, JD! That’s sweet.”The fact that Liu’s father came to the US after supporting the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and has since claimed to be surveilled by the Chinese state, adds to her positive perception in the US. The situation is reversed on Chinese social media, where Gu is called the “snow queen” but Liu finds little mention.UPSHOT: In China, praise for successful sports persons is often filtered through nationalistic terms. It also aligns with the state’s focused investment in sports over the decades.Story continues below this adSuch a system has, from time to time, resulted in fierce online commentary about the athletes after match results. The BBC reported in 2024 that Chinese state media reports called out “inappropriate” behaviour, “such as fans booing during events or accusing referees of being unfair.”With the rise of Trump and the right-wing in US politics, a version of this strain of strongly linking international sports with nationalism at home is now surfacing in the US as well. One American commentator wrote on X, “In a world of Eileen Gu’s, who sell out their country for cash, be an Alysa Liu.” The slain American political activist, Charlie Kirk, wrote on X in 2022 that “Eileen Gu is a traitor.” He alleged that she renounced her US citizenship to participate on China’s behalf, describing it as “akin to treason.” “She should never be able to enter the United States again,” he wrote.