“They’re going to discuss all of these complicated issues,” Daniel Kritenbrink, partner at The Asia Group says. “But at the end of the day, these are still two human beings.

“So that personal relationship means something,” he says. “I think the gift exchange is one key part of that.”

Kritenbrink, who spent over 30 years as a US diplomat, mostly in Asia, says personal relationships are of particular importance to Xi.

He believes the direct Trump-Xi bond is the glue that is holding together “the most complex and the most consequential relationship in the world”.

He says Trump, too, values what Kritenbrink calls “leader-level diplomacy”.

Gifts have had a unique presence in the Trump presidency.

The US president has received a luxury jumbo jet, an engraved gold bar, a diamond-and-jewel encrusted gold ring, and more.

Ole Jacob Sending from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs says: “You think about the Trump presidency in that way, I think gift giving, certainly broadly defined, is very much part of how he operates.”

On Thursday morning, Xi announced a gift of two Chinese pandas to a zoo in Atlanta – and a new student exchange programme, which will welcome 100,000 US students to study in China over five years.

“The giant panda have been an envoy of friendship between the Chinese and the Americans,” Xi said. “In a few days, two pandas – Ping Ping and Fu Shuang – will come to their new home in Zoo Atlanta and meet with the American people.”

It’s unclear if he gave any further presents. The BBC has contacted the White House.