6 min readMay 16, 2026 01:11 PM IST
First published on: May 16, 2026 at 01:11 PM IST
On May 15, China’s President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump concluded a two-day Summit in Beijing. In terms of the overarching paradigm, Xi set the tone for their bilateral ties with three broad brushstrokes.
One, he referred to the guideline for the relationship as being “Constructive Strategic Stability.” This is a novel articulation which acknowledges that even though China and the US will continue to compete and contest, divergences should be managed and stabilised, and the trajectory of ties should tend towards “peace in prospect.” Second, he called on Trump to mitigate tensions by not letting the two countries fall into the “Thucydides Trap” — a theoretical framework that simultaneously casts China as a peer competitor and seeks respite from a wave of reciprocal coercive measures over the past few years. Third, Xi referred to US-China ties as a “giant ship” that he wants both himself and Trump to help sail through the choppy waters of volatile geopolitics. While the call to action isn’t new in and of itself, what it means matters. And to Beijing, it means both the US and China seeking stability over debilitating rivalry, and setting a new example of how “major power diplomacy” can be conducted.
At the tactical level, what became apparent from their deliberations was Beijing’s renewed confidence and assertiveness in dealing with Washington, despite a decade or so of trade and technological restrictions. China’s key concerns vis-à-vis the US — the so-called “four red lines,” its evidently escalated rhetoric on Taiwan, and Xi’s meetings with American CEOs and technologists – together speak to why Beijing is paradoxically both secure and concerned about the trajectory of US-China ties.
As the first official meeting of the Summit concluded on May 14, Xi had already articulated his concerns on the Taiwan issue. And arguably, for him to tell Trump that if the “Taiwan issue is handled improperly,” the two countries “could clash or come into conflict,” is a new precedent in rhetorical escalation, even if it is incremental.
Why it is incremental is because last June, Xi and Trump had a phone call where the former argued that the US must not allow “fringe separatists bent on ‘Taiwan independence’” to “drag China and America into the dangerous terrain of confrontation and even conflict.”
Today, in Beijing’s view, the US is actively mishandling the situation, and military sparring may be a very real possibility as a result. China also reiterated Taiwan’s position as “the most important issue in the US-China relationship” — decisively more significant than trade wars, technological competition, or bloc confrontation. Ultimately, it seems that the US’s coercive or deterring actions have only bolstered Xi’s confidence in holding onto the Taiwan issue. And for Trump, sustained verbal support for Taiwan is not a priority over secure deliverables and sellable outcomes.
Adding to Xi’s rhetoric emphasis was the Chinese embassy in the US’s articulation of the four red lines in US-China relations, which were released on its social media as Trump was landing in Beijing. These are the Taiwan Question, Democracy & Human Rights, Paths & Political Systems, and China’s Development Right. These are key domains of divergence between Beijing and Washington, where the former has no tolerance for violation and disagreement. While all are oft-repeated and intuitive, the red line regarding China’s right to develop freely and openly is particularly telling of China’s view that unilateral sanctions or economic coercion are detrimental to “human rights.”
Speaking of economic and technological growth, Xi also met with the 17 American CEOs who travelled as part of the US delegation. Each is seeking a business deal with China — whether it’s Elon Musk wanting to sell Robotaxis in the Chinese consumer market, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang pitching the H200 chips, Boeing wanting to sell aircraft to Beijing, or Blackstone seeking investment returns from China’s manufacturing and service sectors. Each of these interests brings with it opportunities to strike a deal and create a transactional deliverable for Washington to declare a victory back home.
From the Chinese perspective, some such deals may take months to materialise, either because they pose direct competition to domestic giants or require regulatory rollback. This is the case with Musk’s robotaxis, which compete with Baidu’s, and the H200 chips, which the Chinese have so far informally pushed against. Some deals, such as the purchase of 200 aircraft from Boeing, seem to have materialised on the sidelines of the Summit. Others will be palatable to Beijing, as long as Trump, too, believes in the dictum Xi propagated at their banquet dinner: That it is possible for “Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” and “Making America Great Again” to go “hand-in-hand.”
Overall, at the Summit, Beijing encouraged much deliberation and refrained from creating contentions over firmer commitments on Taiwan or from harping on the war in West Asia. But to sustain the momentum of ties, it must ensure that Washington remains convinced of China’s promise, without letting stable competition turn into enhanced threat perception. To that end, Xi said all the right words – he will open China’s doors wider to American businesses, he wishes to refrain from military conflict, and he believes in win-win cooperation and prosperity. How amenable Washington is will depend most prominently on political currents and the strength of government-business alignment on de-risking and re-shoring.
The writer is Staff Research Analyst with the Geostrategy Programme at the Takshashila Institution. Views expressed in this article do not represent those of the institution
Xi referred to US-China ties as a “giant ship” that he wants both himself and Trump to help sail through the choppy waters of volatile geopolitics. 
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