Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely to attend a major summit of Asian leaders in October, two people familiar with the matter said, dashing expectations of a potential meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the event.

Trump’s major gamble on China continues to pay off, with Chinese negotiators willing to make some concessions. Trump has maintained very high tariffs on America’s second-biggest trading partner without tipping the economy into recession.

The world’s biggest market is less central to global trade today than it once was. At the start of the century, America accounted for a fifth of global imports; today it makes up just an eighth. Even as countries strike tariff deals with Mr Trump to secure market access,

The leaders of China’s failing state have been defying the laws of geopolitics: they have consistently gotten the better of the most powerful figure in the world, President Donald Trump of the United States of America.