Washington, Sep 25: US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping used military honours, conciliatory language and a lavish White House dinner to steady the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship. But their day in Washington produced a framework for managing rivalry, not a settlement of it.

The visit’s central achievement was political choreography.

Trump personally received Xi at Joint Base Andrews, an unusual courtesy for a visiting head of state. A red carpet, US service members and a flyover by two B-1 bombers gave the arrival both grandeur and an unmistakable display of American power.

The next morning brought another formal welcome at the White House. Trump called their relationship a “truly great friendship” built on “mutual respect and the vital interests of our people”.

He said their talks would cover security, technology and “superintelligence”.

Xi answered with the language of guardrails. He called for candid dialogue, greater government-to-government contact and regular military communication.

“China and the United States must hold the line of no conflict and no confrontation between us,” Xi said.

That sentence captured the summit better than its ceremonial excess.

Neither leader suggested that the competition over advanced computer chips, artificial intelligence, military power or influence in Asia had disappeared. Xi said competition should be “healthy” and “kept within bounds”. Trump stressed their common interests.

Trade supplied the clearest immediate result.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said a tariff truce, due to expire in November, had been extended until January 10. The arrangement keeps some US tariffs suspended while China maintains supplies of rare-earth minerals needed by American manufacturers.

It buys time. It is not the larger economic bargain both governments say they want.

The Wall Street Journal reported before the meeting that semiconductor export controls, one of Washington’s strongest sources of leverage, were not on the agenda. Agriculture and lower-technology trade offered easier ground.

Artificial intelligence exposed the same pattern.

Xi said the two countries had “the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good” and ensure its development remained under human control. US officials have discussed an incident-notification channel, effectively an AI hotline.

No binding AI agreement or verification system was announced.

The gap between tone and substance was also visible on Taiwan, Iran and human rights. These are issues on which the two governments’ interests sharply diverge. Yet the public remarks offered no new formula on Taiwan, no clear Chinese commitment on Iran and no announced progress on detained Americans or political prisoners.

For Trump, the summit showcased his preference for leader-to-leader diplomacy. For Xi, the full honours demonstrated that Washington received China as an equal despite deep distrust.

The Washington Post described the airport reception as a rare gesture. The New York Times reported criticism that Trump was giving Xi unusually deferential treatment.

As the presidents met, Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, extending the day’s carefully planned cultural diplomacy.

The state dinner completed the message. American technology executives filled the room. Trump presented Xi with a bald-eagle sculpture and toasted “a future of harmony, peace, and success”.

Xi said their talks had produced “common understanding on many issues”, but did not identify a major new agreement. He argued that China’s national rejuvenation and Trump’s effort to make America great again “can surely be mutually reinforcing”.

Trump and Xi restored ceremony, high-level contact and a vocabulary for coexistence. The rivalry remains. What changed was their joint effort to keep it from becoming uncontrollable.

India has a direct stake in that effort. New Delhi’s border dispute with Beijing, participation in the Quad and dependence on global technology, energy and mineral supply chains make the course of US-China relations important for its security and economy.

Trump and Xi had met seven times before the Washington summit, including encounters in Florida, Germany, Argentina, Japan, South Korea and Beijing. Xi’s latest trip was his second formal state visit to the United States and his first visit to Washington in more than a decade.

United Nations, Sep 25: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defiantly defended his country’s bombing of Iran claiming, “If we hadn’t done it, we’d all be dead”.

In his address to the General Assembly on Thursday, he also shot down accusations of carrying out a “genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza, calling it “the greatest lie of the century”.

On Iran, he said, “Israel and America acted together, not only to protect ourselves, but to save civilization”.

“In this battle against the barbarians, we’ve had no greater partner than President (Donald) Trump”, he said.

Both countries bombed several targets in Iran, killing its Supreme Leader Ali Khameini and several leaders.

That attack, however, led to Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz and choking off 20 per cent of petroleum and gas supplies that pass through it, setting off an economic crisis that affects many countries.

The US and its allies have not been able to bring the conflict to an end.

As he stepped up to the podium to speak, delegates from dozens of countries walked out, and Netanyahu shouted at them, “Cowards”.

His supporters countered, shouting in Hebrew, “Am Yisrael Chai,” meaning “Nation of Israel Lives”.

Netanyahu projected a powerful country that was fighting on seven fronts, against “Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, militias in Iraq, militias in Syria, Palestinian terrorists in Judea Samaria (West Bank)”.

“They all ganged up on us to wipe us off the face of the Earth. They failed”, he said.

When Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza in October 2023, he said, “We didn’t collapse. Instead, we rose and fought like lions”.

In Israel’s massive retaliation, 70,000 people are said to have died.

Palestine’s President Mahmoud Abbas, who spoke before Netanyahu, had accused Israel of conducting a “genocidal war” in Gaza.

“Accusing Israel of genocide is the greatest lie of the century”, he said and asked rhetorically if it was a “genocidal regime”, would it have given a million polio vaccinations to the enemy’s population or enabled the distribution of two million tons of food in Gaza.

One of the many leaders he attacked was Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he called “a tyrant who also hosts the Hamas terror chiefs”.

He accused the leaders of Western countries of having “chosen to succumb to the antisemitic mobs”.

Some countries, Britain being the latest, have put limited sanctions on Israeli products from the West Bank.

“Many in the free world are afraid to defend freedom”, he asserted.

He brushed aside the attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank as the work of “a handful of juvenile delinquents”.

Even though it is magnified in the media, he said, he doesn’t tolerate them and is taking action because “we’re a country of law”.

Tokyo, Sep 25: The death toll rose to 11, with three others still missing, after heavy rain brought by a large typhoon lashed the Kanto region in eastern Japan and triggered landslides and flooding earlier this week, local media reported Friday.

Among the deaths, seven were confirmed in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, while four were confirmed in Kanagawa Prefecture, southwest of the capital. The most recently found victim was a woman in her 70s who had been reported missing after a landslide in Yokosuka, Kanagawa, according to public broadcaster NHK.

Police and firefighters are continuing to search for the missing people, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Typhoon Dujuan, which approached Japan’s eastern Pacific coast on Monday, brought record rainfall to the Kanto region and the Izu Islands, triggering landslides and river flooding and wreaking havoc in areas near Tokyo, particularly in Chiba Prefecture.

As of Thursday afternoon, nearly 1,000 buildings in Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures have been destroyed, damaged, or flooded due to the typhoon, NHK reported.

At Lake Imbanuma in northern Chiba, some levees were breached following the typhoon, leaving surrounding residential areas, rice paddies and streets inundated. Although water levels have been gradually falling, flooding continues, with recovery work ongoing into Friday.

The typhoon also caused considerable inconvenience to daily life and transportation. As of around 6 am local time on Friday, about 11,790 households in Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures were still without power. Train services in Chiba were suspended or reduced on certain sections of many lines, with some services not expected to resume for about three months.

Meanwhile, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, another typhoon, the 26th of the season, could approach the country in the coming days, potentially bringing rough seas and severe weather to the southern island prefecture of Okinawa and other areas.