Missing From the Trump-Xi State Dinner: China’s Business Leaders. American chief executives turned out in force to see Xi Jinping, while their Chinese counterparts were absent, a sign of how drastically business ties have changed. When China’s leader, Xi Jinping, traveled to the United States in 2015 for his first state visit, he brought a delegation of Chinese chief executives to meet their American counterparts. A decade later, the contrast with this week’s summit between President Trump and Mr. Xi could not be more stark. No prominent Chinese chief executives attended Thursday night’s state dinner at the White House.

It is a rather depressing marker of how bad the relationship has gotten, said Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow and director at the Center for a New American Security focused on the U.S.-China economic relationship. One of the highlights of this summit was supposed to be some level of announcement of commercial deals, said Ms. Kilcrease, a former deputy assistant U.S. trade representative. But it seems like we can’t even get to agreement on some of that.

The absence of Chinese business leaders was a small but telling illustration of how thoroughly the economic relationship between the two countries has changed. In 2015, high-profile tech executives were among those traveling with Mr. Xi, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Tencent’s Pony Ma. Their companies were expanding rapidly, and both sides saw enormous opportunities in deeper commercial ties. That era is over. Beginning in Mr. Trump’s first term, the two countries have imposed waves of tariffs on each other. Washington restricted access to some of America’s most advanced technology and limited U.S. investments in parts of China’s high-tech sector. The United States slapped 100 percent tariffs and imposed restrictions on internet-connected vehicles from China, making it financially unviable for the country’s electric vehicles to enter the United States. Beijing retaliated with its own trade restrictions, including controls on exports of rare-earth metals and rare-earth magnets essential to U.S. manufacturers. At the same time, Chinese companies have evolved from prospective customers and partners for American businesses into some of their most formidable competitors. And many of China’s most prominent entrepreneurs now come from industries like artificial intelligence, robotics and electric vehicles — the exact technologies Washington and Beijing are competing most intensely for. It would be difficult to imagine, for example, seeing the Deep Seek co-founder Liang Wenfeng showcased alongside the Open AI chief executive, Sam Altman, at a state dinner. Yet until days before the summit, Chinese officials expected they might bring a business delegation to Washington, according to two people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the private conversations. It was unclear which executives were under consideration, although reports had mentioned Wang Chuanfu, founder of the electric carmaker BYD, and Robin Zeng, chief executive of the battery maker CATL. Their presence would have allowed Mr. Xi to highlight China’s dominance in battery technology and renewable energy. In the end, none received invitations.