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US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping end unipolar age in Beijing

By Bang Xiao, 16 May 26, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-16/us-donald-trump-china-xi-jinping-end-unipolar-age-beijing/106687004

For nearly a decade, the world has braced for a collision.

The dominant United States and a rising China, locked in escalating strategic competition, were said to be hurtling towards a Thucydides Trap that history suggested would be almost impossible to avoid.

This week in Beijing, both Donald Trump and Xi Jinping quietly admitted something the rest of the world has been slow to grasp. Neither of them can afford the collision.

The summit produced no breakthrough trade deal, no joint statement, no big announcement on Taiwan. And yet what it delivered may turn out to be more consequential than any of those things. The public outline of a new global order.

One in which the US and China are not enemies, not rivals, and not partners in the warm Western sense. They are something newer and harder to name. Two structurally interdependent superpowers who have decided, for now, to manage their rivalry rather than let it manage them.

At the state banquet on Thursday night, Xi put the new compact in language no Chinese leader has previously offered an American counterpart in such direct terms.

“The China-US relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world,” he said.

“We must make it work and never mess it up.”

Beijing gave the framework a name: a “constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability”. 

Xi spelled it out in four phrases. Positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay. Sound stability with moderate competition. Constant stability with manageable differences. Enduring stability with promises of peace.

Trump endorsed it. Beijing says the framework will guide bilateral relations for the next three years and beyond.

Read carefully, that is not a thaw. It is the architecture of a new bipolar order.

What was striking about Beijing this week was not just the warmth of the welcome that Xi has staged, it was the unprecedented openness. Cameras were granted access to Zhongnanhai, China’s most secretive political compound, in numbers nearly no foreign press has ever enjoyed.

Xi gave Trump a tour of trees four centuries old, told him the seeds of Chinese roses were on their way home as a gift, and walked beside him into rooms that almost no foreign leader has ever entered.

The only other one to have stood there, it should be said, is Vladimir Putin.

Xi framed the access in personal terms. He told Trump in front of the cameras that he had “chosen this place especially to reciprocate the hospitality extended to me in 2017 at Mar-a-Lago”. It was a private courtesy returned.

Trump went further. He called the relationship “the G2” — the world’s two most important countries.

At the banquet he called Xi “my friend” and described the visit as one of “the most consequential relationships in world history”. He traced the connection between the two peoples back 250 years.

“It’s a special world,” he said, “with the two of us united and together.”

That is the speech of a US president acknowledging a shared story. Nothing in it reads like he will contain a rival.

At the Zhongnanhai tea on Friday, Trump matched Xi’s warmth. He said the two had known each other “almost 12 years” and had “settled problems other people wouldn’t have been able to settle”.

The first test is already in front of them. It is the Strait of Hormuz.

Both leaders publicly agreed this week that the strait should be reopened. Xi indicated he would press Tehran behind the scenes.

What is on the calendar is September 24. That is when Xi will arrive in Washington for the reciprocal state visit Trump confirmed before his departure from China.

It is also, effectively, the deadline for the two most powerful men in the world.

If the Middle East war is not resolved by then, Xi will land in Washington without the commitment he made this week. The G2 will face its first practical test having failed it.

Both sides bet on a wider grey

There was no joint statement issued from Beijing this week. But what Trump delivered at Zhongnanhai, with Xi standing beside him, read like one.

For more than a decade, the US-China relationship has been described in black and white. Rivals or partners. Containment or appeasement. Decoupling or engagement. Democracy or authoritarianism.

This week, both leaders quietly retired the narrative. What they care about most sits in the grey area in between: trade, energy, Iran, supply chains, agriculture and Chinese international students.

The bet is that the grey will keep expanding. If it does, the Cold War tactics of the past decade will lose their grip. Less chip-export brinkmanship. Fewer tariff retaliations. Quieter security frictions. None of it is guaranteed.

The grey holds only if both sides keep their nerve.

The bet rests on a structural reality. Both superpowers are slowing.

China’s growth has decelerated from the highs of the 2000s, weighed down by demographics, a property correction and US tech restrictions.

America’s productivity is real, but its consumer is exhausted, its public debt unprecedented, and its industrial base in semiconductors and rare earths dangerously exposed.

In a slowing world, the cost of confrontation rises. Xi’s “Chinese Dream” of a high-tech, sustainable economy needs continued access to American capital and innovation. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” needs access to the largest consumer market on Earth.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has tightened the screws further. With Iranian oil crippled, Beijing needs the energy flow uninterrupted, and Trump has the leverage. Both leaders know it.

Xi made the convergence explicit at the banquet, in a single line that will be re-read for months: “Achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can go hand in hand.”

It was the first time the leader of the Chinese Communist Party has publicly endorsed an American political slogan. Trump raised his glass.

After nearly a decade of trade wars and chip-export controls, both sides have arrived at the same conclusion. Neither can win.

And the worst case scenario is already playing out. Both leaders are increasingly distrusted by the rest of the world. That makes the bilateral alignment more valuable to each of them, not less.

A decade ago, Beijing was the rising party seeking acknowledgement. This week, Xi sat across from Trump as a co-equal. Trump accepted the framing.

The unipolar moment ended somewhere between the 2008 financial crisis and Donald Trump’s second inauguration. This week in Beijing was the formal recognition of it.

Where the grey ends

There remains one structural risk: Taiwan.

Xi was unusually pointed on the issue during the bilateral, warning Trump that mishandling Taiwan would push the relationship “into an extremely dangerous situation” of “collision and conflict”.

Beijing chose to release these comments while Trump was still in the country. The framework of strategic stability does not extend to what China considers its red line.

The toasts themselves contained no mention of Taiwan. The hard line was for the bilateral, the soft line for the cameras.

Trump, asked about Taiwan at the Temple of Heaven, deflected with “China is beautiful” and changed the subject. That is not endorsement. But nor is it the unconditional defence Taipei would want to hear.

The new bipolar order, then, is not a stable equilibrium. It is a managed one. It depends on each side resisting the temptation to test the other on the one issue where both have publicly committed to no compromise.

For Australia and other middle powers, the implications run deep. The strategic competition framework that Canberra used to align with Washington has been quietly retired in favour of something messier and more transactional.

The two superpowers have now stood side by side and called themselves partners, friends, co-stewards of the giant ship of human history.

America and China are no longer enemies-in-waiting. They are two slowing giants who have agreed, in Beijing this week, that they need each other more than they once admitted.

The rest of the world has been preparing for a cold war. It has been handed a partnership of necessity between two superpowers who have both reached the limits of confrontation.

That is the order we now live in. And the rest of us will have to adjust.

May 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Trump‑Xi summit: Cautious Progress On Trade, Ties And Some ‘Win‑Wins’.

But importantly, Xi and Trump agreed to establish a Board of Trade and Board of Investment – intended to create a pathway forward to more trade in the months to come.

 May 16, 2026 , Yan Bennett for the Conversation, https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/16/trump-xi-summit-cautious-progress-on-trade-ties-and-some-win-wins/

President Donald Trump departed China on May 15, 2026, after a two-day summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that was scrutinized from every angle for clues on where the relationship is heading.

Trump hailed the trip as “incredible,” while Xi remarked that it marked a “new bilateral relationship.” Other observers were a little less enthusiastic, noting that no major breakthroughs were evident at the highly anticipated meeting of the world’s two most powerful political leaders.

The Conversation turned to Yan Bennett, an expert in U.S.-China relations and author of “American Policy Discourses on China,” to provide her three big takeaways from the summit.

Taiwan: Tough(ish) talk but status quo in place

No one really expected there to be movement on Taiwan – which mainland China lays claims over – although it is clear that Beijing would like the United States to make a firmer stance against the island moving toward a declaration of independence, or for the U.S. to expressly demand reunification.

So what we got was Beijing reiterating that Taiwan remained a priority and a core interest. Xi did this on the first day of the summit, noting that the Taiwan “question” remained “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” and that any mishandling of it could lead to “clashes and even conflicts.”

But this was aimed at two things. First, Xi has a domestic audience he needs to address, and Taiwan has long been important to Chinese rhetoric. The Chinese Communist Party has around 100 million members, many of whom would have expected Xi to talk tough on Taiwan – and it was those people he was largely talking to.

But he was also signaling to the U.S. that it shouldn’t support Taiwanese independence. And that won’t ruffle any feathers in Washington. Indeed, the 2025 National Security Strategy stressed that the U.S. opposed unilateral action on Taiwan from “either party” – a signal to Beijing that it opposed Taiwan declaring independence.

Trump did mention arms deals to Taiwan. But the U.S.’s declaratory policy since the Reagan administration is that it doesn’t allow Beijing to enter discussions about what weapons Washington sells to Taiwan. And that hasn’t changed at all, nor has the U.S.’s treaty commitment to Taiwan since 1979 that requires the U.S. to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.

Rhetoric aside, everyone is happy with the status quo on Taiwan – it is in no one’s interest for it to change.

But talk of Taiwan has been muddied a little by Xi’s determination to modernize the People’s Liberation Army. The Chinese president has laid out a series of benchmarks including that the PLA should be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027. This has been misinterpreted in the U.S. under the so-called “Davidson window” – a concept that has it that China is intent on invading by that time.

In reality, China is nowhere near able to do so. It doesn’t have a “blue water navy” able to operate without port assistance, and the island is incredibly difficult to invade – it only has two places where you can land, and only at certain times of the year. It is also very mountainous. Taiwan is also slowly building its defenses – and learning a lot from Ukraine’s war with Russia – with the intention of becoming “indigestable” to China.

Xi’s modernization timeline also states that the PLA should be a “world class military” – taken to be a peer to the U.S. – by 2049. But the fact that it spends more on internal security than it does on defense indicates where the CCP’s true interests lay – in domestic security rather than external capabilities.

Trade: Tamped down expectations

The big picture is that the U.S. and China have been trying to restabilize what was until fairly recently a very good relationship in terms of economic ties.

Both sides have clear priorities to that extent. China wants to regain the American market it had in the 1990s and early 2000s – and certainly reverse the trend since 2018’s trade war.

Trump since his first administration has made it clear that he sees Chinese control over supply chains and the trade imbalance as a national security issue. Washington also wants to address unfair trade practices, such as the requirement that American companies hand over blueprints, trade secrets, customer lists, marketing plans and more to operate.

So what was achieved in the summit? On the surface, very little. There was some movement on sales of U.S. beef to China. And Trump announced that Beijing would buy 200 aircraft from Boeing – lower than the 500 that had been earlier touted in media reports. And several Chinese companies agreed to buy Nvidia microchips – a continuation of a process that began in late 2025.

That doesn’t seem much, and it was telling that Trump himself wasn’t being very “Trumpian” on what could be achieved during the summit. He wasn’t promising the moon.

A lot of focus will be on technology. China is about 18 months behind the U.S. in microchip development. Some have questioned whether U.S. companies should be selling chips to China, amid fears that China could steal the intellectual property and be able to use higher-technology chips for defense reasons. The U.S. position is it can’t allow Huawei – China’s telecom giant – to take over the whole Chinese market, so it will only allow the sale of what it considers appropriate-level Nvidia chips.

Military matters: Washington wants to talk

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the U.S. always kept the military lines of communications open to avert a catastrophic incident. This hasn’t been the case with Beijing and Washington. We saw that in 2001 when a U.S. aircraft collided with a Chinese jet; and again over the “Chinese spy balloon incident” in 2023.

Washington is seeking to open up a line of communication on military matters, and that is probably why U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was there in Beijing. Indeed, it is highly unusual for a defense secretary to be at such a summit.

Not that Trump believes he needs China’s help on military matters. He made that clear when asked about possible Beijing assistance prior to the summit.

In fact, little news came out of the summit on Iran. China has criticized the U.S. over the war, but has also quietly been telling Tehran to stop bombing Gulf countries.

Despite some commentary suggesting that Beijing benefits from the U.S. being bogged down in the Middle East, what Xi will want is a resolution before the economic fallout bites in China.

China’s stockpile of Iranian oil will only last a few more weeks and then oil price rises will hit China like a brick.

May 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

This Is The REAL Reason For Trump’s Visit To China.

May 14, 2026, Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/14/this-is-the-real-reason-for-trumps-visit-to-china/

Donald Trump didn’t arrive in Beijing as the leader of a confident superpower. He arrived like a salesman carrying a collapsing empire on his back — flanked not by diplomats or peace negotiators, but by Silicon Valley monopolists, Wall Street vultures, and billionaire oligarchs desperate to keep their fortunes alive. Elon Musk. Jensen Huang. Larry Fink. Tim Cook. Blackstone. Goldman Sachs. The entire spectacle looked less like diplomacy and more like a corporate hostage negotiation staged on behalf of an American ruling class suddenly realizing it may have lost the economic war it started.

In this blistering breakdown, Ben Norton argues that Trump’s China summit exposes a geopolitical reality Washington refuses to admit publicly: the U.S. trade war backfired, China adapted, and America’s corporate elite now need Beijing far more than Beijing needs them. As the war on Iran drives inflation higher, supply chains fracture, and rare earth shortages threaten both Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, Trump’s anti-China rhetoric is quietly giving way to panic, flattery, and desperation. The result is an extraordinary image of imperial decline — an American president openly traveling with oligarchs to plead for access to the very economic system Washington spent years trying to cripple. 

The best line of all from Ben may be this: “Nothing screams ‘we are an oligarchy’ more than taking oligarchs instead of diplomats to a diplomatic mission.”

And he’s right. We are living in an oligarchy — one where billionaires ride on Air Force One while working people are left paying for inflation, war, tariffs, and economic collapse. The masks are gone. Corporate CEOs now sit beside presidents like unelected cabinet members, openly shaping foreign policy, trade policy, and even war itself.

As the country barrels toward another election in 2028, the deeper crisis is that most major candidates, regardless of party branding, still end up bowing before the same billionaire donor class. The slogans change. The marketing changes. But the power structure remains untouched.

May 18, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Trump lands in Beijing with over a dozen western moguls in tow ahead of high-stakes talks with Xi

Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and top executives from Nvidia, Qualcomm, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Mastercard, Visa, Boeing, and Meta joined the US president

The Cradle, MAY 13, 2026

US President Donald Trump landed in Beijing on 13 May for a crucial meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to address trade, technology, Taiwan, the war against Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz.

Met with red-carpet treatment in the Chinese capital, Trump was joined by a retinue of more than a dozen billionaires whose companies span major sectors of the US and global economies.

A total of 16 high-profile business leaders accompanied the US president, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as CEOs from Nvidia, Qualcomm, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Mastercard, Visa, Boeing, and Meta Platforms President and Vice Chair Dina Powell McCormick. 

Trump is scheduled to meet Xi after his first night in Beijing, with the visit centered on what both sides agree to be a crucial moment for the world’s two largest economies.

The US-Israeli war on Iran and the resulting global energy crisis are expected to weigh heavily on the talks. 

The US President is expected to urge his Chinese counterpart to pressure Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and move toward a peace deal, as China depends heavily on crude oil shipments through the waterway.

The talks are also expected to cover Taiwan, artificial intelligence, advanced chip exports, trade, and fentanyl, with both sides seeking concessions on long-running disputes that have strained relations between Washington and Beijing……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The meeting also comes as Washington imposes new sanctions on a China–Iran oil network ahead of Trump’s Beijing visit, tightening efforts to choke off Tehran’s oil revenue while the US–Israeli war on the Islamic Republic and the Hormuz crisis strain global energy markets. https://thecradle.co/articles/trump-lands-in-beijing-with-over-a-dozen-western-moguls-in-tow-ahead-of-high-stakes-talks-with-xi

May 18, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

US-China Summit: A strategic moment for stabilizing bilateral relations

14 May 2026 AIMN Editorial , By Chen Ziqi, https://theaimn.net/us-china-summit-a-strategic-moment-for-stabilizing-bilateral-relations/

US President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for a new round of face-to-face talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping from May 14 to 15, a meeting arriving at a particularly delicate moment in global politics and the international economy.

It marks the first in-person meeting between the two leaders since the Busan agreement last October, where both sides agreed to suspend further escalation of the US–China trade war for one year.

While a flare-up in the Middle East delayed this meeting by a month, the cooling of tensions with Iran has finally cleared the flight path for what many view as the most consequential diplomatic inflection point of 2026.

Amid a fragile global recovery and uncertainty in international markets, the Beijing meeting is being closely watched for whether both powers can move from “crisis management” to a more sustainable form of strategic equilibrium, with implications for broader global economic stability.

At their first meeting on Thursday morning, President Xi congratulated the United States on its 250th anniversary, while President Trump praised Xi as “a great leader,” setting a warm and friendly tone for the opening of the summit.

President Xi noted that China and the US should be partners, not rivals, empathizing the relationship between the two countries would have implications not only for their peoples, but also for the future of the world. President Trump addressed this is going to be the biggest summit, as top business delegation was with him.

A US official said the two sides are expected to continue discussions on establishing new mechanisms for trade and investment coordination, with cooperation in agriculture, aerospace, and energy also likely to feature prominently.

Beijing, meanwhile, has framed the visit as an opportunity to stabilize bilateral ties amid growing global uncertainty. In remarks on Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry emphasized the need to expand mutually beneficial cooperation, manage differences, and “inject greater stability and certainty into a turbulent and changing world.”

Guidance from strategic analysts

Beijing, meanwhile, has framed the visit as an opportunity to stabilize bilateral ties amid growing global uncertainty. In remarks on Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry emphasized the need to expand mutually beneficial cooperation, manage differences, and “inject greater stability and certainty into a turbulent and changing world.”

Analysts broadly agree that the summit reflects a shared near-term interest in stabilizing China–US relations, even as deeper strategic tensions remain unresolved.

Zhao Hai, director of the International Politics Program at the National Institute for Global Strategy, points out that the primary “product” of this summit needs to be predictability. For the private sector, the specific policy is often less damaging than the volatility of not knowing what the policy will be tomorrow.

This mirrors the “managed strategic competition” framework championed by former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The goal in Beijing is not necessarily to bridge a decade-long trust deficit in a three-day summit, but to prevent further accidental escalation. He said that careful coordination and transparent dialogue are essential to maintaining stability over the long term.

Economic frictions and business impacts

While Chinese state media frame economic relations as both a stabilizing foundation and a key driver of broader China–US ties, US tariff policy continues to sit at the center of bilateral disagreement.

While Beijing views these measures as “unreasonable restrictions,” the Trump administration continues to utilize them as its primary tool of economic leverage.

John McLean, chairman of the China–UK Business Development Centre, noted that shifting US tariff policies are creating deep uncertainty, prompting many companies to delay or reconsider long-term investment plans.

The economic data, however, tells a more nuanced story of self-inflicted wounds. A recent study by the Kiel Institute, a leading German economic research body, found that foreign exporters absorb only about 4% of the tariff burden, with the remaining 96% falling on US business and consumers.

These findings underscore that while tariffs are often framed as protecting American industries, their indirect effects are influencing pricing, supply chains, and investment decisions.

For small and medium-sized enterprises, the consequences are particularly acute. Philip Crawley, who operates a laser equipment import business in California, reported that tariffs imposed last year cost his company millions, forcing it to slow operations, reduce employee pay, and postpone hiring plans.

Glen Calder, president of Calder Brothers in South Carolina, said his steel costs increased by 25% even before US tariffs took effect, as markets anticipated higher trade barriers.

Strategic competition may be conducted at the state level, but its economic consequences are frequently absorbed by businesses, workers, and consumers navigating unpredictable policy environments.

Continued investment interest in China

Perhaps the most surprising element of the current climate is the resilience of corporate interest. Despite these challenges, many US businesses continue to view China as a critical market.

According to the American Chamber of Commerce in China, around 60% of American companies still plan to invest in the Chinese market, reflecting enduring confidence in China’s economic opportunities.

The rationale is clear: China accounts for roughly 17% of global GDP, contributes about 30% of global economic growth, with a and is projected to export nearly $4 trillion in exports in 2025.

Its sheer economic scale and growth make it important for companies to overlook, providing strong incentives to maintain or expand investment even amid uncertainty.

Looking ahead: Cooperation and strategic stability

President Xi noted in today’s meeting that success in one is an opportunity for the other. China has maintained a relatively consistent stance toward Washington, rooted in the idea that the Pacific is large enough for both powers. This summit offers a rare window to clarify intentions and move beyond the zero-sum rhetoric that has dominated the 2020s.

Reducing uncertainty in trade, investment, and technology will benefit businesses and global markets alike, reinforcing long-term stability, which is a shared asset, not a concession. Reducing the “noise” in trade and technology isn’t just a win for diplomats. It’s the oxygen required for global markets to breathe again.

Chen Ziqi is a reporter from CGTN

May 18, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment