Zheng Yongnian is a political scientist in China and a government adviser. His academic work is mainly about contemporary China, particularly politics, the country’s transformation and its external relations. SCMP Plus readers get early access to articles in the Open Questions series. Many have offered a lukewarm assessment of the Xi-Trump summit in Washington, citing the lack of a breakthrough. What is your take? There are two primary views right now. One is nihilism, which holds that China and...