* China frustrated with last-minute US planning for visit

* Trump-Xi summit may include Boeing ( BA ) jet purchase

agreement

* USTR reluctant to include CEO delegation on Trump's

visit

By Laurie Chen and Michael Martina

BEIJING/WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - A summit between

U.S. President Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping this month is

unlikely to create room for even a limited reset of business and

investment ties, five people briefed on preparations said.

American business leaders at this stage have not secured the

CEO delegation some had sought. On the other side, there is no

indication Beijing is on track for the investment protections it

has sought on behalf of Chinese companies.

Washington and Beijing are looking to maintain the stability

that has characterised relations between the world's two largest

economies since late last year after a bruising period marked by

Trump's tariffs and China's chokehold on rare earths exports.

But some U.S. companies had also held out hope Trump's visit

could go further than a green light for the deals on Chinese

purchases of soybeans and Boeing ( BA ) aircraft, already under

consideration.

'EVER-SHRINKING STATE VISIT'

Overshadowing the summit - the first Trump-Xi meeting since

they agreed on the trade truce in October - has been Chinese

frustration with the Trump administration's last-minute planning

for an event that normally takes months of painstaking

preparations, three people with knowledge of the arrangements

told Reuters.

Uncertainties, besides clearance for Chinese investment,

include the thorny issue of Trump's tariffs and whether he will

be joined by the kind of high-profile business delegation that

the leaders of Canada, Britain and Germany recently brought to

China on their state visits.

"This feels like an ever-shrinking state visit. The ambition

for what this trip will accomplish seems to be getting smaller

by the day," said Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton

China Center at the Brookings Institution.

The White House, Treasury Department, Office of the U.S.

Trade Representative and China's commerce and foreign ministries

did not respond to requests for comment on prospects for the

summit.

Trump is to visit China from March 31 to April 2, a U.S.

official told Reuters last month. China has not confirmed the

trip, but its top diplomat said on Sunday the agenda for the

exchange was "on the table".

"What is required is for both sides to make thorough

preparations to create a conducive environment to manage

existing differences," Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a press

conference on the sidelines of an annual parliament meeting in

Beijing.

Washington only began working-level interagency planning

meetings for the trip recently, leaving little time for a state

visit that Beijing expects to be highly choreographed, two

sources said.

U.S. officials view the visit as one of four potential

Trump-Xi summits this year. A meeting in Paris this week between

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He

Lifeng will focus on possible deliverables for the Beijing

meeting, a person with knowledge of the evolving preparations

said.

Trump's ambassador to Beijing, David Perdue, is pushing for

a CEO delegation, and U.S. officials in China have made

tentative outreach to companies, two sources said.

But USTR, which has been driving Washington's summit agenda

with Treasury, has been reluctant to bring CEOs, three sources

said, to keep the focus on "managed trade".

TARIFFS LOOM, BUT SUMMIT NOT 'A FIGHT ABOUT TRADE'

The Trump team could still scramble a last-minute CEO

delegation, three sources said. The China Development Forum, to

which dozens of top American executives flock annually, will

take place a week before the summit.

To secure Chinese investment in the U.S., Beijing wants

security guarantees, two sources said, after the forced

divestiture of TikTok in the U.S..

Trump invited Chinese automakers to build factories in the

U.S. in January, but a U.S. official said the president has not

pushed for an all-out effort to secure investment commitments

from China, as he did with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Some Republican lawmakers have warned Bessent that

Washington should not lower guardrails against Chinese

investment.

Tariffs remain a potential flashpoint.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month invalidated a 10%

fentanyl-related tariff Trump had imposed on China and others

under an emergency statute. The Trump administration has told

Beijing it expects to reimpose that levy under a different law,

a U.S. official said.

But the purpose of the summit is "not to fight about trade,"

Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told ABC News last month.

"It's to maintain stability, make sure that the Chinese are

holding up their end of our deal and buying American

agricultural products and Boeings and other things, and making

sure they are sending us the rare earths that we need," Greer

said.

A potential win from the summit could be an agreement for

China to purchase some 500 narrow-body jets from Boeing ( BA ).

Trump last year threatened export controls on Boeing ( BA ) parts, a

pain point for China.

Beijing is seeking U.S. concessions for the purchase,

including multi-year parts guarantees, said two sources briefed

on the negotiations. The deliveries would likely not be

completed until the 2030s because of Boeing's ( BA ) production pace

and order backlog.

White House officials could still opt to push the Boeing ( BA )

deal back to minimise the need to make concessions to Beijing

and reserve some deals to announce for a future summit on U.S.

soil, one person with knowledge of the discussions said.