President Donald Trump on Thursday extolled the “truly great friendship” he has cultivated with Xi Jinping, as the Chinese leader inaugurated his much-anticipated state visit by exhorting the world’s two largest economies to collaborate more closely in order to avert friction amid their rivalry.

Although Trump has a plethora of contentious matters to deliberate with the president of America's foremost economic competitor, he elected to foreground his longstanding rapport with Xi as the two convened alongside aides for opening remarks prior to formal negotiations.

"From the moment of my inaugural election in 2016, President Xi and I have cultivated a friendship — a truly extraordinary friendship, in fact — predicated upon mutual respect and the paramount interests of our respective peoples," Trump said.

China has rebuffed the Trump administration’s entreaties — and economic coercion — to wield its considerable leverage in pressuring Iran to accede to U.S. terms for ending the nearly seven-month war.

Xi seeks from Trump a permanent cessation of arms sales to Taiwan and a relaxation of export curbs on cutting-edge advanced chips.

On Wednesday, the two sides concurred on extending by two months a one-year trade truce slated to lapse on Nov. 10, as they endeavor to forge a more durable agreement.

In the course of their private deliberations, Xi further exhorted Trump to “prudently handle the Taiwan issue,” as reported by the Chinese state media outlet Xinhua.

China has unequivocally articulated its position that Taiwan constitutes the most sensitive issue in the U.S.-China relationship.

Beijing regards Taiwan as Chinese territory and has vowed to annex the island by force if necessary.

The United States is legally obligated to furnish Taiwan with sufficient hardware to deter any armed attack from the mainland.

The U.S. has stated that it opposes any unilateral alterations to the status quo by either side.

China has repeatedly importuned Washington to effect a permanent cessation of arms sales, including on the occasion of the meeting between Trump and Xi in Beijing in May.

Subsequent to that meeting, Trump conveyed that he was withholding final authorisation for a record $14 billion arms package then in the pipeline.

He went on to characterise arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.

Xi was likewise more pointed than Trump in his public remarks, asserting that Chinese and American interests are “deeply intertwined” and that the “competition should be a healthy one and should be kept within bounds.”

He further reiterated his admonition that the United States and China must elude the “Thucydides trap,” an allusion to the proposition that when a rising power threatens to supplant an established one, war is frequently the consequence.

Xi proffered a comparable caution when Trump visited Beijing in May.

“It ought to constitute a race of catching up with one another, rather than a wrestle in which one either wins or loses,” Xi added.

Xi moreover proclaimed that China would proffer invitations to 100,000 young Americans to undertake studies and exchanges within his nation over the ensuing quinquennium, and that China would dispatch two pandas to the zoo in Atlanta.

He characterised these cherished creatures as an “envoy of friendship,” adding that they would make the acquaintance of the American people in a “few days.”

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Trump remarked in a social media post earlier on Thursday that artificial intelligence — “superintelligence,” as he seeks to rebrand it — would figure prominently on the agenda, amid mounting global apprehension that the technology will eliminate jobs or perhaps even extinguish humanity.

“I wish to leave it precisely where it is,” Trump wrote.

“That is China’s position as well.”

Xi likewise broached the subject of AI in his opening remarks, asserting that both nations bore a responsibility to guarantee that humans invariably exercise dominion over AI.

“We possess both the wherewithal and the obligation to cultivate and steward AI for the common good, and to guarantee that the trajectory of AI's development remains perpetually subject to human oversight and is directed toward serving the welfare of the people,” the Chinese leader said.

The finance ministers of the two countries convened earlier this week, with the United States proposing a novel "notification mechanism" governing AI incidents between the two nations.

Trump has evinced an unmistakable determination to impress Xi by means of this visit.

The Republican president ensured that construction of a new helicopter landing pad on the White House’s South Lawn was concluded prior to the visit, and he greeted Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, on Wednesday evening upon their arrival at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.

The White House had likewise orchestrated an elaborate military review, which the leaders and their spouses observed prior to the talks in the Oval Office.

Subsequent to the military review, first lady Melania Trump accompanied Peng on a visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.

Following approximately ninety minutes of deliberations, the leaders emerged onto the South Lawn, affording Trump the opportunity to showcase the newly constructed White House helipad and conduct for Xi a tour of Marine One, the presidential helicopter.

Trump and Xi likewise appeared to survey the ballroom construction site from a distance.

Xi departed the White House shortly after this brief tour and was scheduled to return in the evening for the state dinner.

“We had a great meeting,” Trump remarked during a terse exchange with reporters in the aftermath of the tour.

Subsequently, the leaders will sup on sea bass at a black-tie dinner hosted in the White House East Room, resplendent in red décor, where a toast will be raised in homage to the late President Richard Nixon, whose 1972 visit to China precipitated the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979 and the concomitant severance of formal ties with Taiwan.

Trump’s decision to extend a red-carpet reception to Xi has elicited censure from legislators across both parties as well as certain confederates within the White House.

“Frankly, had the White House solicited my counsel, I would have counselled against the president extending to Xi Jinping an invitation to Washington for so lavish a welcome here in the United States of America, given the panoply of troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

The two sides further deliberated upon the ongoing conflict in Iran, as reported by the Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television.

Trump has contended, to scant avail, that China—far more reliant on Gulf oil than the United States—possesses ample incentive to leverage its influence with Tehran in order to help precipitate an end to the conflict.

Yet Trump’s war of choice has unsettled Beijing, prompting the government to denounce the U.S. and Israeli military action, while Xi had previously voiced apprehensions that the conflict betokened a reversion to what he termed the “law of the jungle.”

The U.S. administration has cautioned China, Tehran’s foremost trading partner, against abetting Iran’s military endeavor.

Xi, during Thursday’s deliberations, affirmed that China endorses the United States and Iran reverting to a transient interim accord brokered in the summer, with the aim of de-escalating the conflict, as reported by CCTV.

That arrangement collapsed shortly after its June signing, as the two nations exchanged renewed hostilities over dominion of the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway of paramount importance for energy shipments.