President Donald Trump is facing appreciation, questions and criticisms following his diplomatic visit to China last week.
After returning from the three-day visit on Friday, he hailed it as a source of "some fantastic trade deals," including deals for chipmaker Nvidia to sell products to 10 Chinese companies, and for Citi to start selling securities in China.
While the White House said the talks between the two leaders went well, there were vague reports of disagreements and tough negotiations, caused in no small part by Chinese President Xi Jinping's unwillingness to compromise with the presidential delegation, which included dozens of US industrial leaders.
And some news reports, notably in the British BBC, characterized the US position as a "hardline" and uncompromising, though China appeared intransigent over a number of issues, notably the island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory but many other nations, including Taiwan, consider to be independent from mainland.
The biggest criticism of the Trump visit is that the trade arrangements were few, considering the size of the US delegation, but others counter that deals with authoritarian states like China don't happen quickly; the government bureaucracy and corruption among federal officers can be among the worst in the world -- leaving aside the basic cultural differences between the two nations
"If you had 50 presidential summits in one month or one year, it still wouldn't change the fact that there are some issues on which the US and China are simply never going to agree," David Firestein, president and CEO of the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations told the BBC.
Perhaps the worst of criticism seemed to come from Xi himself, when he speculated Thursday that the two countries might clash over Taiwan if the issue is not handled properly, an oddly harsh statement that contrasted with Trump's praise for the Chinese president, and a peculiarly hostile point of view given the Chinese need to maintain dignity.
Indeed, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon said in Politico, "I am shocked, given how much people wanted to make this into a positive spirit, he [Xi] started with a threat. It was so brazen and so blatant, that they made this at the very top."