Trump-Xi summit analysis: 'Tangible outcomes' needed for U.S.-China truce to hold

BEIJING — In a summit dominated by spectacle , the U.S. and China have essentially agreed to keep talking.

President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington, D.C., last Wednesday to Friday in Xi's second state visit since 2015. Trump personally greeted Xi at the airport in a very rare gesture, and more than 100 people, mostly from U.S. government and businesses, attended a state dinner for Xi.

But there were few breakthroughs, including a far shorter-than-expected two-month trade truce extension.

"I'm concerned that this kind of diplomacy and this fragile detente is really unsustainable — if it doesn't result in more tangible outcomes or in addressing in some way the strategic challenges that are clearly manifest across the entire relationship, from the strategic relationship to economics," Daniel Kritenbrink, partner at consultancy The Asia Group, said Monday on CNBC's " Squawk Box Asia ."

Statements from both countries following the summit agreed on only a handful of points.

Peter Alexander, Shanghai-based managing director of Z-ben Advisors, said he was surprised the two sides issued separate statements rather than a joint one.

It means "the two sides are truly locked in a battle seeking to determine where escalation dominance in the relationship resides," Alexander said in a note Monday. He had expected Xi would not likely travel to the U.S. unless a joint statement had been agreed to in advance.

Here are major areas where the U.S. and China sent similar messages, according to their readouts released over the weekend: