Nvidia chips, soybean orders signal thaw before Xi-Trump summit
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- China approved imports of up to 200,000 Nvidia H200 chips for Alibaba and ByteDance ahead of Xi's expected US visit, though the final quota is expected to fall short of half that figure and below what domestic firms applied for earlier this year
- Trump said a meeting with Xi could take place around September 24, coinciding with the UN General Assembly session; Trump is scheduled to address the assembly on September 22
- Cofco booked at least six cargoes of American soybeans for September–October shipment, and the USDA disclosed a single-day purchase of 472,000 metric tons — the largest daily volume shipped to China since November 2025
- China released Pastor Kim Myeongil, who led China's largest evangelical underground church before his October arrest, and sent him to the US at Trump's request, though Beijing has yet to free jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai
- Wang Yi warned that a proposed $14 billion US arms sale to Taiwan — including HIMARS rocket systems, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and ATACMS — 'could affect the whole situation' of US-China relations
- Beijing and Washington are discussing a $30 billion trade mechanism for non-sensitive goods under a one-year tariff truce keeping US tariffs on Chinese goods at roughly 30% through November 10, 2026
- Nvidia shipped zero H200 chips to China in the first half of this year even though ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent had been cleared to purchase more than 400,000 units combined as of late January
Why it matters: The thaw hands Trump a diplomatic headline ahead of the UN General Assembly, but the underlying numbers show how partial the concessions are: the H200 quota will be less than half of 200,000 and far below what Chinese firms originally sought, and Nvidia has shipped zero H200s to China in H1 2025 — meaning even a reduced quota reverses Beijing's 'buy domestic' stance. Meanwhile Wang Yi's explicit warning about the $14 billion Taiwan arms package signals the one issue where these olive branches don't reach.
