Suddenly, the odds of a China-US trade deal are rising anew as Xi Jinping expresses a willingness to sit down with Donald Trump's White House.

With clear pre-conditions, of course. As Bloomberg and other news outlets report, President Xi's government wants Trump and his cabinet to tone down the rhetoric, clarify what exactly Washington seeks and name a specific point person to lead the talks. China named a new trade representative on Wednesday.

Each of these could be a non-starter – or a spoiler over time – given US Trump's penchant for late-night social-media tantrums and wild policy shifts from moment to moment. After all, Trump's taxes on mainland goods have traveled at warp speed from 10% to 145%.

Yet the real question isn't whether Xi and Trump hammer out a Group of Two trade deal. It's whether it will amount to anything other than a face-saving exercise of rearranging the deckchairs on a sinking business, economic and financial relationship.

Here, Japan can offer some insight from its successful run-in with the Trump 1.0 gang. Successful, because then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe managed to ensure Japan's bilateral trade talks with Trump World ended in a draw.

Case in point: Trump was so anxious for a "win" versus America's long-time nemesis that he agreed to leave auto industry negotiations for another day. Of course, that wash of a free-trade deal didn't shield current Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba from having to face off against Trump 2.0.

Ishiba's trade negotiators, led by Japan's economic revitalization minister Ryosei Akazawa, are currently facing off with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trump's trade representatives.

Overnight, Trump claimed there's been "big progress." But given the chaos wrought by Trump's tariffs – and multi-trillion-dollar plunge in US stocks – Tokyo may be able to get away once again with a watered-down, face-saving trade agreement that doesn't cede remotely as much as Trump will claim.

China, though, has a much stronger hand – and Xi knows it.

This week's news that gross domestic product exceeded expectations to grow 5.4% year on year in the first quarter suggests China is moving into the Trump 2.0 tariff area with decent momentum. Not firing on all cylinders, but also not stumbling as badly as many economists thought.