President Xi Jinping appears to have turned up on a mission to de-escalate trade tension and avoid a trade war that could be disastrous for both countries and the world.
And he stuck to his guns.
However annoyed the Chinese might have been about the US action in Syria or the diplomatically aggressive timing of the strike, they didn't bite back.
Trump was invited to visit Beijing and he accepted. And the US was offered some trade concessions.
It will get better market access for its financial sector and for beef exports to China.
In China, the media have trumpeted the meeting as a great success.
Reuters reports state-run Chinese tabloid Global Times saying the meeting "served as an indicator that the China-US relationship is still very much on course since the Trump administration took office in January".
The official party line this may be, but it is the official party line that world markets wanted to hear.
If and when Trump does enough to really upset the Chinese, we'll hear about it.
Syria and North Korea were raised in the talks but did not feature heavily in state media reports.
The Global Times did run an editorial saying that in Trump's "first major decision on international affairs, his haste and inconsistency has left people with a deep impression."
But for now China has prioritised stabilising trade relations.
Both countries need to maintain face. But both have a lot to lose if a trade conflict escalates.
Concessions such as those Xi has offered are ideal. They aren't economically or politically difficult for the Chinese. The loosening of financial investment restrictions was already being discussed with the Obama regime.
Access for US beef is the overdue relaxing of a 2003 ban put in place after a rogue case of mad cow disease, already promised six month ago.
But they do allow Trump to claim small victories and back away from his more alarming rhetoric on trade with a veneer of success.
His visit to Beijing will be another test of the relationship but the fact that the invitation was offered and accepted during the weekend was another good sign.
After a short, sharp reaction in oil prices and US equity futures markets quickly normalised after the missile strike on Syria.
Wall Street closed a fraction down for the day on Friday.
To put things in perspective, underwhelming US jobs data in the weekend was perceived as bigger negative for markets.
The boring old ups and downs of scheduled economic data are a welcome distraction from the volatility of major geo-political events.
Even that was tempered when US Federal Reserve New York president Dudley Williams said he had seen nothing in any of the weekends events to raise any doubt about planned interest rate hikes later this year.
