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After meeting President Trump in April last year, China's President Xi Jinping announced a big idea to show the world, and especially the White House, that China's economy was opening up: the China International Import Expo.
When he opened the huge gathering on Monday in Shanghai, "opening up" was a constant refrain in his 30-minute address.
There's no doubt that the 3,000-plus foreign firms here will be good business. President Xi's association with the event will make it so.
One senior diplomat told me the Chinese hosts could be unveiling a total of $ 150bn in the weekend. (The UK is likely to announce £ 2bn or $ 2.6bn worth of deals).
All of this is designed to show Beijing is addressing one of President Trump's biggest bugbears – China's massive trade imbalance with the US.
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But the US government has given this event the cold shoulder. There are no high level officials attending.
With talks in the trade, the message from Washington is that the gathering is is window dressing.
It does not address the US's core concern about the trade relationship, structural inequalities and its growing anger over China's alleged theft of intellectual property.
Tangible changes
Plenty of big American firms, like Ford, Boeing, Qualcomm and Google, have come to the show. None of these wanted to talk to the BBC about the apparent business bonanza.
All of them want to be in China, with access to the world's biggest market. But some are also planning to shift to supply chains or manufacturing bases if the trade war goes on.
There were some tangible changes announced in Mr Xi's speech.
He wants to be a foreigner, and he is one of the leading companies in the world. (This could be particularly good for the UK which is strong in these service sectors).
There was also a "sincere commitment" to open China's further markets, on China's terms.
And there was certainly no sign that China is about to win in the trade war.
Communist Party Leaders Speakers in recent years.
Mr. Xi gave at Davos early in the world and his country as a new champion of globalization and open, free trade.
But the economic environment is changing.
Recent GDP figures confirmed growth in China's economy is slowing down.
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Last week, China's top chaired leader of the country's most senior leaders in which they said that "downward pressure" on the economy was "increasing".
He also sought to reassure the country's top private business figures of his "unwavering" commitment to the private sector (where most new jobs are created here).
Back in present-day Shanghai, President Xi had just broken into the podium.
That commitment was also embellished with a very familiar metaphor.
Appearing to refer to the trade as a "battering storm" he said the Chinese economy "is a sea".
Storms can "overturn a pond" he said, but "never" a sea.
