As senior officials from China and the U.S. hold their first meeting under the Biden administration on Thursday, experts are not hopeful that the summit in Alaska will reset bilateral ties between the two countries or produce any substantial results.

China is unlikely to compromise on issues such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang, in exchange for a rollback of U.S. sanctions on Chinese entities, said Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Department of History at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“Xi Jinping is an extreme nationalist. He needs to show the party he will not back down from the U.S. in order to establish himself as a strongman leader. To be eligible for another term, he needs to take an assertive stance,” said Lam. “A win-win situation is unlikely.”

Though Washington has expressed concerns about curtailing of freedoms in Hong Kong and human rights abuses in Xinjiang, media commentator Johnny Lau said Beijing will take the opportunity to test the U.S. commitment to issues of human rights.

China currently has a number of issues that need the help of the U.S., said Hung Ho-Fung, a political economics professor at the Johns Hopkins Department of Sociology. They include lifting tariffs and a ban on the sale of 4G chips to Chinese telecommunications firm, Huawei.

Though China will bring up the topic in the meeting, Beijing’s recent emphasis on dual circulation and supply-chain security shows its expectation that the U.S. will not relent, he added.

The Alaska Summit is preceded by a flurry of meetings with Japan, Australia and India, as the U.S. shores up Asian alliances in the face of growing threat from China. “These countries have growing grievances against China,” said Hung. “They hold the same political stance and will be reliable allies for America.” These meetings taking place prior to the Alaska Summit also shows America’s priority, he added.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeatedly stressed that the two countries can cooperate on issues of climate, but Hung said it is only a narrative to indicate that bilateral ties have not been fully severed.

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