When Trump sees another strongman, he assumes he is looking in the mirror. That’s why he is always so desperate to meet with Xi. Is he right?
No, because strongmen are not fungible. Kim is essentially a hereditary monarch, while Putin is a dictator; like Trump, they can change positions on a dime, and the nation is bound to follow. Xi, on the other hand, is the leader of a country with an entrenched official ideology and a huge bureaucracy. For all of the power he wields within the system, he can’t simply ignore its interests; as a true believer, it is doubtful he would even want to try. That means personal diplomacy with him is only going to get Trump so far.