As U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House on Thursday (September 23, 2026), the world’s two biggest powers appear to be looking to extend their truce.
In May, when Mr. Trump visited Beijing, both sides declared their commitment to build a “constructive relationship of strategic stability”, a Chinese coinage that the U.S. President, to the surprise of many observers, readily accepted.
This week, Mr. Trump is laying the red carpet for Mr. Xi, including by personally welcoming him at Joint Base Andrews, a courtesy he has not extended to any other leader.
Optics aside, the expectations for the visit are, however, largely modest on both sides, seen an effort to put a floor on a contentious relationship rather than a grand bargain. This is regardless of Mr. Trump’s stated fondness for the idea of a “G2” which has concerned countries in the region, including India.
In the weeks after Mr. Trump’s visit to Beijing, both sides have traded blows, including the listing of Chinese companies such as Alibaba and BYD by the Pentagon for “civil military fusion”, and mutual accusations over how the other side is conducting the AI race. Other sticking points remain unresolved, such as tariffs, restrictions on semiconductors and Chinese export controls, especially on rare earths. China is also pressing the U.S. to stop arms sales to Taiwan, described by Beijing as the biggest flashpoint in the relationship.
If this has led some observers to suggest this truce is merely a tactical pause while each side works towards reducing their vulnerabilities and building leverage, others argue there are compelling reasons for both powers to pursue a future relationship of stability.
Comment | A China-U.S. summit that drew global attention
Writing in Foreign Affairs before the visit, Da Wei, a leading voice in Beijing on the China-U.S. relationship and Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, made the case for why despite structural challenges, there were reasons for both to pursue a detente.
“The rapid development of technologies such as AI will make it particularly difficult for either the U.S. or China to eliminate the other’s sources of leverage,” he said. In the lead up to the visit, the two sides held talks in New York between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, including to set up a dialogue mechanism for AI cooperation.
The broader reason for a continued truce, in the view of Da Wei, was the narrowing power differential between the two countries. “China is looking at bilateral relations from a position of greater equality and with more confidence,” he said. “It is less anxious that competition will undermine its national development prospects. Instead, Beijing believes that competition can be effectively managed without presenting an existential threat.”
For other Chinese strategists, the longer term goal is a grand bargain that will gradually see declining U.S. interest in Asia and a reshaped Asian security order. The view in Beijing is that Mr. Trump has already initiated that trend.
Li Kai, the Vice-President of the influential China Institutes for Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) in Beijing, argued in the lead up to Mr. Xi’s visit that “regional affairs should be led and managed by Asian countries themselves”.
“This is consistent with the principle of ‘Asian solutions to Asian problems’,” he said. “Confronted with an increasingly complex regional security landscape, we must fend off external interference, seek common ground while reserving differences, proactively manage divergences and facilitate peaceful settlement of disputes.”
