This week, President Donald Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time.

Will their meeting herald a new era in U.S.-China relations? Probably not, and in fact we may see a lot of short term instability between Washington and Beijing. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be optimistic about the future of this vital relationship.

The "Harvard on China" podcast spoke with John Pomfret - former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post from 1996 to 2003, and author of "The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present" - about how he sees the Trump-Xi meeting in the historical context of U.S.-China relations.

The "Harvard on China" podcast is hosted by James Evans at Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Listen to more podcasts at the Fairbank Center's SoundCloud page.