More than anything else, the future of the world in the 21st century depends on the relationship between its two most important nations — China and the United States. That’s what makes next week’s crucial summit in Florida between their two presidents, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, so important and unpredictable.

Two years ago, I wrote: “When the history of this century is finally written, its leading headline will likely be the emergence of China as the world’s dominant superpower.”

However slowly, that headline is beginning to be written. It is not melodramatic to suggest, as U.S. journalist Fareed Zakaria did recently in The Washington Post, that “after 75 years of U.S. leadership on the world stage, the Mar-a-Lago summit might mark the beginning of a handover of power from the United States to China.”

There are several aspects to this summit that are extraordinary. Although it is intended only to be an introductory meeting, it will be much more. Behind the forced smiles and awkward courtesies, it will highlight how dramatically the relationship between China and the U.S. is changing.

In 2013, when Xi Jinping first came to the U.S. as China’s new leader to meet President Barack Obama, there was no doubt about which leader was dominant. Or which country.

Obama had just been re-elected, while Xi’s presidency was just beginning. The United States was still the world’s dominant superpower, while China was uneasily grappling with severe economic and political challenges.

Four years later, the global landscape has changed. Xi is now regarded as perhaps the most powerful and authoritarian Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. Trump, in contrast, is looking as if he may turn out to be the most ineffective U.S. president in modern times.

By any measure, Trump has experienced a truly awful beginning to his presidency. And let’s not forget that he was the candidate who said, repeatedly, during the presidential campaign: “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing.”

Now that Trump is president, the irony is that so many of his foreign policy blunders have played directly into China’s hands. And the damage has been real.

On the world stage, America under Trump has created an enormous vacuum, while China under Xi has seized on it as an enormous opportunity. And Xi is doing this in spite of an abysmal human rights record.

Trump has pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and turned his back on global trade. The trade agreement was intended by Obama to create a bloc of Asian allies to stand up to China. With that agreement gone, China has the field for itself.

Trump is reducing America’s global role in diplomacy, foreign aid and international organizations such as the United Nations. China, in response, is expanding its diplomatic and foreign aid initiatives, and aggressively accelerating its efforts to influence the United Nations.

This past week, Trump moved to roll back many of the major American climate change initiatives of the Obama era. This comes as China is going ahead with significant climate change programs.

These moves by Trump, and China’s countermoves, provide a sobering framework for next week’s summit.

Although Xi met Obama nine times, he is still largely unknown by the American public and media. But, unlike other Chinese leaders, he may know them more than they know him.

Xi frequently mentions a 1985 visit to Iowa when he stayed overnight in the small bedroom of a middle-class family, surrounded by their boy’s Star Trek figures. His daughter graduated from Harvard in 2014 and he is said to have a sister living in Canada.

Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, is a glamorous celebrity soprano, and she will be with her husband on the trip.

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In 2015, Trump was asked on Fox News how he would ever approach a summit with the Chinese president. He replied: “I would not be throwing him a dinner. I’d get him a McDonald’s hamburger, and I’d say we gotta get down to work.”

When officials on Thursday confirmed the summit for April 6-7, they indicated that the U.S. president and first lady Melania Trump will host the Chinese couple for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. The menu was not given.

Tony Burman is former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com .

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