President Obama wants to strike up a friendly tone with Chinese President Xi Jinping when they meet today in California but the issues on the table are anything but informal. Patrick Chovanec, chief strategist at Silvercrest Asset Management, joins MoneyBeat. 
 
 President Barack Obama and China's new leader, Xi Jinping, made broad commitments Friday to work together on cybersecurity and to improve military-to-military relations as the two leaders wound up a first round of talks during an informal summit at the Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California. 
 
 But both leaders said they'd not yet had detailed talks on cybersecurity—one of the most contentious bilateral issues—and Mr. Obama said they would have "more extensive discussions" during a private dinner Friday night. They were due to hold more talks in the morning, before winding up the summit around midday Saturday. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama shake hands at the Annenberg Retreat, Calif. 
 
 At a news conference before the dinner, Mr. Obama said that China would have similar concerns about cybersecurity as its economy became more dependent on research and entrepreneurship. "Which is why I think we can work together on this rather than at cross purposes," he said. 
 
 Mr. Xi said: "By conducting good faith cooperation, we can remove misgivings and make information security and cybersecurity a positive area of cooperation between China and the U.S." 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Associated Press Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping sits in a model of the lunar rover vehicle during a tour of Johnson Space Center in Houston in 1979. 
 
 Cowboy Hats and Barbecue Notable visits to the U.S. by Chinese leaders 1979 Deng Xiaoping, following normalization of relations, famously dons a cowboy hat at a Texas rodeo—and set the tone for a decade of warming ties. 1997 Arrival of President Jiang Zemin, at invitation of Bill Clinton, formalizes a thaw in ties eight years after Tiananmen. 2002 President George W. Bush hosts Jiang at the Bush family ranch in Texas, after Beijing backs U.S.-led war on terror. They eat barbecue and take a truck tour of the ranch. 2006 President Hu Jintao is denied full state honors and confronted by a Falun Gong protester on White House lawn. 2011 President Obama receives Hu at the White House with full honors, even as bilateral tensions mount. Obama welcomes China's 'peaceful rise,' a term coined by Hu. 2012 Xi Jinping—then vice president and President Hu's presumptive successor—attends a Lakers game and reunites in Iowa with a couple he stayed with on a visit there in 1985 2013 Xi returns as president for an informal two-day summit with Obama in California. 
 
 Chinese and U.S. officials are both hoping that the informal format of the meeting—the two leaders' first since Mr. Xi became president in March—will give them the time and the right atmosphere to forge a personal rapport and reverse a downward spiral in relations that many analysts fear could lead to conflict. 
 
 Chinese Leaders' Postcards From America View Slideshow Associated Press Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping visited the U.S. in 1979 
 
 For Mr. Obama, who met Mr. Xi for the first time last year when he visited the U.S. as vice president, the summit was an opportunity to get to know the man who will lead China over the next decade. But the Obama administration also had a long list of economic and security concerns, many of which it has confronted China with for years, with mixed results. They include Chinese cyberespionage, North Korea's nuclear program, Beijing's maritime disputes in Asia and Chinese market reforms. 
 
 Mr. Xi, too, had much at stake, bringing with him a proposal to redefine the relationship with the U.S. as one of equal "great powers,"–a personal initiative that is part of his broader campaign to promote a "Chinese dream" of a strong nation reclaiming the position in the world that it held until the Opium Wars of the 19th Century. 
 
 Before the first round of talks, the two leaders—both wearing white dress shirts with open collars and no ties—walked together on the grounds of the estate in the 115-degree heat, and shook hands in front of the cameras. They each made brief statements calling for a new era of bilateral relations, although Mr. Obama stopped short of echoing Mr. Xi's "great power" formula. 
 
 The news conference was dominated by cybersecurity, talks on which could be complicated by the recent disclosures on electronic surveillance by Mr. Obama's own government. 
 
 "What both President Xi and I recognize is that because of these incredible advances in technology, that the issue of cybersecurity and the need for rules and common approaches to cybersecurity are going to be increasingly important as part of bilateral relationships and multilateral relationships," Mr. Obama said. 
 
 "In some ways these are uncharted waters and you don't have the kinds of protocols that cover military issues for example and arms issues where nations have a lot of experiencing in trying to negotiate what's acceptable and what's not." 
 
 Mr. Obama sought to draw a distinction between activities such as hacking or cyber-theft, and the kind of surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency. He also noted that cybersecurity wasn't just a concern for the U.S. and China, and that problems were often caused by nonstate actors. 
 
 "We're going to have to work very hard to build a system of defense and protections both in the private sector and in public sector even as we negotiate with other countries around the world in setting up common rules of the road," he said. 
 
 Mr. Xi remarked that in the days before the summit, he had noticed a sharp increase in media coverage of cybersecurity issues. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close AFP/Getty Images President Barack Obama, left and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, hold a bilateral meeting in California. 
 
 "This might give people the sense or feeling that cybersecurity as a threat mainly comes from China or that the issue cybersecurity is the biggest problem in the U. S-China relationship," he said. "The application of new technology is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it will drive progress…. on the other hand it might create some problems for regulators and it might infringe upon the rights of states, enterprises, societies and individuals." 
 
 He repeated China's long-standing position that it too has concerns about cybersecurity and is a victim of hacking attacks. 
 
 Mr. Xi also said the two sides should improve military to military relations, as well as cooperation on trade and the environment. He said he looked forward to maintaining close communication with President Obama, who he invited to visit China for a similar summit "at an appropriate time". 
 
 Mr. Obama said the two sides would "institutionalize and regularize" military-to-military talks that have often been suspended in the past, and which aren't yet formally part of a regular U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the latest round of which takes place next month. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Getty Images President Barack Obama, left, and Chinese President Hu Jintao, right, in 2011. 
 
 Mr. Xi didn't appear to be using notes during either the news conference or his earlier statement with Mr. Obama—demonstrating a confidence in his own abilities and in his standing within the Communist Party that his predecessor, Hu Jintao, never displayed during his 10 years in office. 
 
 U.S. officials said Mr. Xi pushed for the summit and agreed to the informal format despite Chinese leaders' usual preference for highly scripted talking points approved in advance by China's top decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee. 
 
 Mr. Xi himself drew parallels with the 1972 meeting between Chairman Mao Zedong and President Richard Nixon in Beijing, which laid the ground for the normalization of relations six years later. Comparisons have also been made with a visit to the U.S. by Deng Xiaoping in 1979, signaling a return to personal diplomacy in the bilateral relationship. 
 
 But with expectations in China running so high, analysts say that if Mr. Xi fails to demonstrate a rapport with Mr. Obama—and entice the U.S. to reciprocate his overtures—he could face criticism at home for spurning a Chinese trend of consensus-based decision-making in favor of concentrating more power in his own hands. 
 
 Chinese media are already portraying the Sunnylands summit as a historic victory for Mr. Xi's "new-type great power" initiative—a formula designed to prevent the military conflict that has often arisen between a rising power and an established one. 
 
 "China and the United States must find a new path, one that is different from the inevitable confrontation and conflict between the major countries of the past," Mr. Xi said. "And that is to say the two sides must work together to build a new model of major country relationship." 
 
 Mr. Xi sought to allay U.S. concerns that his talk of national rejuvenation implied that China seeks to displace the U.S. as the dominant military power in Asia. 
 
 "I stated very clearly to President Obama that China will be firmly committed to the path of peaceful development," he said. "By the Chinese dream we seek to have economic prosperity, national renewal and people's well-being.…It is connected to the American dream and the beautiful dreams people in other countries may have." 
 
 Mr. Obama responded by saying he welcomed China's continued "peaceful rise"--echoing a term coined by Mr. Xi's predecessor, Hu Jintao, that has been used less frequently by Chinese officials since Mr. Xi took power. 
 
 Mr. Obama endorsed the goal of seeking ways to avoid conflict, but stopped short of echoing Mr. Xi's "great power" formulation, saying instead that he hoped for "more extended" and informal talks leading to a "new model of cooperation." 
 
 "We've got a lot of work to do to take these broad understandings down to the level of specifics and that will require further discussions not only today and tomorrow but for weeks, months, to come," he said. 
 
 "But what I'm very encouraged about is that both President Xi and myself recognize that we have a unique opportunity to take the US-China relationship to a new level and I am absolutely committed that we don't miss that opportunity." 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Newport News Daily Press/Associated Press Chinese President Jiang Zemin waves to the crowd during a visit to Colonial Williamsburg in 1997. 
 
 Beijing offered some apparent sweeteners in the run-up to the meeting in California. Chen Guangfu, the brother of Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese activist who took refuge in the U.S. Embassy last year and later moved to the U.S., said on Friday that Chinese authorities had issued passports to him and their mother, following long delays. 
 
 China also suggested last week that it might be willing to join U.S.-led talks to strike an Asia-Pacific free-trade agreement, which it previously denounced as part of a U.S. containment strategy. On North Korea, there were also glimmers of hope for the U.S. side, according to U.S. officials. The new Chinese leader has displayed less tolerance for North Korean sabre-rattling, and China recently ordered a state bank to close the account of North Korea's foreign-exchange bank. 
 
 The Xinhua news agency, a mouthpiece of the Chinese government, said Friday that the North Korean nuclear issue could be a "converging point," but called on Washington to improve its ties with Pyongyang. 
 
 —Andrew Browne in Chengdu and Tom Catan in Rancho Mirage, Calif. contributed to this article. 
 
 Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com and Colleen McCain Nelson at colleen.nelson@wsj.com 
 
 A version of this article appeared June 8, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Stakes Are High for Summit. ||||| The Obama administration is refining its use of offensive cyber operations to counter evolving threats of electronic assaults against the United States. 
 
 Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said Friday a directive signed by President Barack Obama last year calls for government cyber tools to be "integrated with the full array of national security tools we have at our disposal." 
 
 Hayden was responding a report in the British newspaper The Guardian that says Obama has ordered national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential cyber targets overseas. 
 
 The Guardian report comes as Obama was about to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with alleged Chinese hacking against the U.S. to be one of the main topics of discussion. 
 
 While the newspaper report offers details about Obama's directive that had not been made public before, the White House released a declassified summary of the directive in January. 
 
 Moreover, the Pentagon acknowledged in March that it was setting up a series of cyber teams charged with carrying out offensive operations to combat the threat of an electronic assault on the United States. 
 
 Gen. Keith Alexander, the top officer at U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, testified March 12 before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the potential for an attack against the nation's electric grid and other essential systems is real and that the federal government needed to take more aggressive steps. 
 
 At the time, Alexander said 13 cyber teams were being formed to guard the nation against destructive attacks in cyberspace, stressing that their role would be offensive. He also said the teams would work outside the United States, but he did not say where. 
 
 "This directive will establish principles and processes that can enable more effective planning, development and use of our capabilities," Hayden said in a statement Friday. "It enables us to be flexible, while also exercising restraint in dealing with the threats we face. It continues to be our policy that we shall undertake the least action necessary to mitigate threats and that we will prioritize network defense and law enforcement as the preferred courses of action." 
 
 The timing of Friday's report coincides with Obama's two days of meetings with Xi at a California retreat. Top issues are cybersecurity and North Korea's nuclear threats. 
 
 The Guardian's report is the third significant leak of classified information this week. Following other revelations, the Obama administration has conceded that it has been secretly seizing phone records from millions of Americans and scouring U.S. Internet data for evidence of potential terrorist plotting. 
 
 Obama himself weighed in Friday, defending the counterterrorism measures and noting that they are authorized and reviewed by Congress. He also said the Internet surveillance program does not apply to U.S. citizens or to people living in the United States. 
 
 "I don't welcome leaks, because there's a reason why these programs are classified," Obama said, before the latest Guardian report. "In our modern history, there are a whole range of programs that have been classified because, when it comes to, for example, fighting terror, our goal is to stop folks from doing us harm, and if every step that we're taking to try to prevent a terrorist act is on the front page of the newspapers or on television, then presumably the people who are trying to do us harm are going to be able to get around our preventive measures." 
 
 ____ 
 
 Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this report. ||||| BEIJING (AP) — China on Tuesday warned the United States was jeopardizing military ties by charging five Chinese officers with cyberspying and tried to turn the tables on Washington by calling it "the biggest attacker of China's cyberspace." 
 
 This wanted poster is displayed at the Justice Department in Washington, Monday, May 19, 2014, after Attorney General Eric Holder, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin, U.S. Attorney... (Associated Press) 
 
 China announced it was suspending cooperation with the United States in a joint cybersecurity task force over Monday's indictments, which accused the officers of stealing trade secrets from major American companies. 
 
 The testy exchange marked an escalation in tensions over U.S. complaints that China's military uses its cyber warfare skills to steal foreign trade secrets to help the country's vast state-owned industrial sector. A U.S. security firm, Mandiant, said last year it traced attacks on American and other companies to a military unit in Shanghai. 
 
 The charges are the biggest challenge to relations since a meeting last summer between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Sunnylands, California. 
 
 Ties already were under strain due to conflicts over what Washington says are provocative Chinese moves to assert claims over disputed areas of the East and South China Seas. Beijing complains the Obama administration's effort to shift foreign policy emphasis toward Asia and expand its military presence in the region is emboldening Japan and other neighbors and fueling tension. 
 
 Beijing has denied conducting commercial spying and said it is a victim of computer hacking, but has given little indication it investigates foreign complaints. 
 
 "The U.S. accusation against Chinese personnel is purely ungrounded and absurd," said a statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency and read on the state TV midday news. 
 
 The Ministry of Defense warned that the U.S. accusations would chill gradually warming relations between the two militaries. 
 
 "The United States, by this action, betrays its commitment to building healthy, stable, reliable military-to-military relations and causes serious damage to mutual trust," it said. 
 
 Despite the pointed language, damage to U.S.-Chinese relations is likely to be limited, with little change in trade or military links, because Beijing realizes the indictment of the five officers is symbolic, said Shen Dingli, a director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University. He has close ties to China's foreign policy establishment. 
 
 Beijing is unlikely to engage in tit-for-tat retaliation such as issuing its own indictments of American soldiers and probably will go ahead with plans to take part in U.S.-hosted naval exercises next month, Shen said. He said cybersecurity cooperation is likely to be suspended indefinitely, but that should have little impact because the joint group achieved little in its three meetings. 
 
 "Political, security and commercial espionage will always happen," Shen said. "The U.S. will keep spying on Chinese companies and leaders, so why can't China do the same?" 
 
 The Cabinet's Internet information agency said Chinese networks and websites have been the target of thousands of hacking attacks from computers in the United States. 
 
 "The U.S. is the biggest attacker of China's cyber space," Xinhua said, citing a statement by the agency. "The U.S. attacks, infiltrates and taps Chinese networks belonging to governments, institutions, enterprises, universities and major communication backbone networks." 
 
 Monday's indictment said the People's Liberation Army officers targeted U.S. makers of nuclear and solar technology, stealing confidential business information, sensitive trade secrets and internal communications. The targets were Alcoa World Alumina, Westinghouse Electric Co., Allegheny Technologies, U.S. Steel Corp., the United Steelworkers Union and SolarWorld. 
 
 The Justice Department said the charges should be a national "wake-up call" about cyber intrusions. American authorities have previously announced details of cyberattacks from China but Monday's indictment was the first accusation to name individuals. The Justice Department issued wanted posters with the officer's photos on them. 
 
 In announcing the suspension of its work with the cybersecurity group, the Chinese government warned of further retaliation "as the situation evolves." 
 
 The working group was established in April 2013, following the publication of allegations of spying by the Chinese military and held its first meeting last July. 
 
 The new indictment attempts to distinguish spying for national security purposes — which the U.S. admits doing — from economic espionage intended to gain commercial advantage for private companies or industries. 
 
 The United States denies spying for commercial advantage, though documents released by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said the NSA broke into the computers of Brazil's main state-owned oil company, Petrobras. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said if that was true, then the motive would be to gather economic information. 
 
 "China has already expounded its stance and is strongly opposed to stealing commercial secrets," said Xiong Zhiyong, a foreign relations specialist at Tsinghua University. "I think there is no difference between China and the United States in allowing cyberspying for national security, though there is no open announcement by the Chinese government." 
 
 The indictment says the Chinese hackers stole proprietary information from the companies and the labor union, including design specification for Westinghouse pipes and pricing and strategy information from SolarWorld. 
 
 Working from a building in Shanghai, prosecutors say, the hackers in some cases gained access to networks by sending emails to company employees that looked authentic but that actually contained a link to malicious code. 
 
 The defendants are believed to be in China and it was unclear whether any might ever be turned over to the U.S. for prosecution. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen and researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption What American and Chinese people want 
 
 US President Donald Trump will host his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for two days of talks in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. From trade to currency to North Korea, a lot is on the table for the leaders of the world's two largest economies. Will they have time for some golf? 
 
 As in alpha males. At a fraught moment in history, the world's two biggest economies are led by two macho men about to meet on a blind date. A could also be for the anxiety this unpredictable encounter provokes among policymakers on both sides, especially in a Chinese presidential team which hates surprises. 
 
 President Trump has done a lot of rhetorical China bashing. But at this summit the contours of a real US China policy must start to appear. Was all Mr Trump's campaign talk of winning against China just sound and fury signifying nothing or was it a muscular new policy in the making? 
 
 President Trump has repeatedly accused China of being a master manipulator of its currency. Many economists say it was once but isn't now. For the past two years China has been selling its reserves to keep the value of its currency up rather than driving it down to boost exports. In Florida, will President Trump call President Xi a currency manipulator to his face or will he pick a different battle? 
 
 Read more: The risks and benefits of China weakening its currency 
 
 What will this summit actually deliver? Nearly half the US trade deficit is with China and this week President Trump said again the US "cannot continue to trade if we are going to have an unfair deal like we have right now". But in his lexicon, D is also for difficult. He has warned that the summit with President Xi will be exactly that, which is perhaps a way of managing expectations down towards Ds for disappointment and deterioration. Some pessimists warn that the most this summit can deliver is greater predictability in a stressed and uncertain relationship. Other pessimists say those pessimists are already too optimistic, that this summit is premature because President Trump doesn't even have a China team let alone a coherent China policy. But those pessimists are in the American camp. For China, US incoherence is a source of optimism. 
 
 And US employment. President Xi must convince his host that China offers solutions for both if he wants to keep US markets open to Chinese goods. 
 
 President Trump is giving President Xi plenty of it by inviting him to his private Florida resort. That's meaningful to a status conscious Chinese audience at home. If Mr Trump can refrain from tarnishing the gift by some unforeseen slight or offence, optimists say he may get a calculated concession on North Korea or trade in return. 
 
 Because President Xi disapproves of a game played back home between tycoons and corrupt Communist Party officials. Instead G is for globalisation of which the Chinese president now likes to see himself the champion. Along with efforts to tackle climate change. Expect subtle Chinese allusions to President Trump's retreat from both. 
 
 It's supposed to be a gesture of peace and its absence would send the wrong signal, but President Xi has his own version of this ritual and will not want to submit to the much studied Trump grab and yank. Watch for a hybrid handshake. 
 
 Ivanka Trump, The soft power weapon of the Trump administration in China. Opinions divide on the father, but the daughter is a source of fascination to many young Chinese, and when relations between the incoming Trump administration and Beijing were at their nadir following the president elect's phone call with the Taiwanese president, it was Ivanka who kept lines of communication open with her attendance at a Chinese new year embassy function in Washington. 
 
 Read more: Could China's Trump tactics actually be working? 
 
 Jared Kushner, Ivanka's husband, has also established a good relationship with China's top diplomats in the US. At 36 and with no previous government experience, President Trump's son-in-law has become a key channel of communication between the White House and Beijing. But he's a novice on the most complex bilateral relationship in the world, and until last week his family's real estate business was pursuing a significant investment from a politically connected Chinese company. Those negotiations have now been suspended amid suggestions of a potential conflict of interest, but some observers still worry that he may be vulnerable to China's master negotiators and mistake a short-term gain for long-term US advantage. 
 
 The leader of North Korea managed to overshadow a visit to Asia last month by the new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. On that occasion it was the carefully timed announcement of a new rocket engine. No one is in any doubt that North Korea's bid for nuclear missiles which can reach American soil will loom large over this summit. But to prevent the world's inattention even for a moment, Kim Jong-un test fired a missile on the eve of President Xi's arrival in Florida. 
 
 Read more: North Korea's missile programme 
 
 And the lower key presence of the first ladies Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan. As fashion model and folk singer respectively, both were familiar with the limelight long before their famous marriages. It will be interesting to watch the first ladies attempt to engage without upstaging the husbands. 
 
 For all President Xi's fine talk of openness and globalisation, the US market is currently open to Chinese goods and services in a way that China's is not. Beijing has repeatedly promised to remove import barriers, and as this is in the interests of China's long term growth, there really ought to be room for progress here. 
 
 President Trump will have to avoid shouting, sulking and abuse. Chinese protocol will simply not tolerate it. 
 
 The slogans that China likes: "One China" and "One Belt, One Road". The former is the formulation which frames a fragile US-China understanding on how to avoid going to war over Taiwan. The latter is China's massive infrastructure and development initiative for Asia. After initially threatening to re-examine relations with Taiwan, President Trump committed to the "One China Policy" in a phone call with President Xi in February. But there is no fixed US position on "One Belt, One Road" and President Trump is highly unlikely to sign up to President Xi's other favourite slogan the 'new model of great power relations' by which China signals its hopes for an Asian sphere of influence. 
 
 The American ghost at the summit feast. The pivot to Asia was the slogan of the first Obama administration eight years ago, a vision of a United States firmly embedded in Asia with the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement underpinning a mesh of American security alliances. In Mr Obama's second term, the pivot to Asia was rebranded the rebalance, but with President Trump's decision to walk away from TPP, both pivot and rebalance are history. Even some US security alliances in Asia are looking less than solid in face of the rise of China and its vigorous cheque book diplomacy. If President Trump wants to hang onto allies like the Philippines and Thailand he urgently needs an Asia policy as well as a China policy. In fact, it's hard to define the latter without the former. 
 
 The Trump administration talks tough on China, but when it comes to actually engaging, it is in the same quandary as every previous US administration since the US and China restored diplomatic relations four decades ago - how to exert leverage on Beijing without damaging itself or its allies. 
 
 But also for rivalry and risk. In just a few brief hours together over a dinner and a lunch, can the two presidents build enough personal rapport to cut through the strategic rivalry and mistrust which risk the future of the world's most important bilateral relationship? 
 
 The South China Sea. President Trump does not want to accept China's audacious island-building and militarisation as a fait accompli but President Xi will certainly not back down to a summit threat. And if the new US president is silent on the subject of the South China Sea, some allies may see it as a signal of willingness to surrender control of these vital waters to Beijing. So what to say about the South China Sea? 
 
 Read more: South China Sea dispute 
 
 And tariffs and Twitter. And also for Thucydides Trap, the theory that a rising power causes fear in an established power which then escalates toward war. Xi Jinping actually discussed the Thucydides trap at the 2015 summit with Barack Obama. On that occasion, there was no agreement on how to avoid it. Most would agree that the rise of the rising power and the fear of the established power have only increased in the interim. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption What are the contentious issues around US-China trade? 
 
 Read more: Is Trump wise to take on China over trade? 
 
 This week President Trump said the US would solve the problem of a nuclear North Korea on its own if China was unwilling to help. In the first instance, dealing with the problem may mean secondary sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals who trade with North Korea. And as a last resort, it may mean the threat of pre-emptive US military action against Pyongyang. It's a discussion which will get President Xi's full attention but it seems unlikely that he and his host can agree on what constitutes Chinese "help with North Korea" let alone how much of it would be enough. 
 
 US presidents often use summits to remind their Chinese communist counterparts of the virtues of democracy, human rights and freedom. But President Trump may choose to remain silent on values. 
 
 The new US secretary of state gratified President Xi last month when on a visit to Beijing. He used the Chinese formulation "non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation" to describe US-China ties. President Xi would dearly love to hear President Trump echo this language. Despite all the name calling from Mr Trump over the past year, the Chinese president and his state-controlled media have stuck to mild appeals to reason and common interest in framing the US-China narrative. Vanilla is President Xi's favourite flavour here and if he can persuade President Trump to tweet bland he will call it a triumph. 
 
 At home, the Chinese president is in the sensitive run up to a Communist Party Congress at which he wants to install key allies in top positions. The last thing he needs is a trade war with a vital export market, especially as China's economic growth is slowing. A standoff in the South China Sea or on the Korean peninsula would be even worse. President Xi needs his relationship with President Trump to work. And he needs to go home calling this summit a success. 
 
 Read more: The ever-growing power of Xi Jinping 
 
 … hmmm… not sure. Any suggestions? 
 
 As in zero sum game. If President Trump takes a zero sum attitude towards the US trade balance with China, and if President Xi takes a zero sum attitude towards the US role in Asia then their summitry will swiftly sour and all talk of winners will look hollow.
– Cyber-spying, trade, North Korea, US military maneuvers—there's no shortage of big issues for President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping to tackle tonight and tomorrow during their informal summit in Southern California. But the biggest emphasis is on establishing "personal chemistry," reports the Wall Street Journal. The leaders will have six hours of talks, a private dinner, and walks around the Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage to try to achieve it. As the summit opened this evening, Obama said he hoped it would establish a "new model of cooperation" between the nations, and Xi used the phrase "a new model of major country relations," reports Politico. China's alleged cyber-spying is likely at the top of the US agenda, and the Guardian reinforced the point earlier today with a story saying that Obama ordered up a list of potential overseas cyber-targets last year. It doesn't include specifics, but any such list would likely have plenty of Chinese targets. (The AP doesn't think the story is bombshell material—it notes that the White House released a declassified version of the president's directive in January.) As for the summit, the New York Times has the unusual detail that while Obama will be sleeping on site at the estate in Rancho Mirage, Xi and his officials will bunk at a nearby hotel, apparently worried about their rooms being bugged.