Xi and Trump set sights on stability for China and the US – with a note of caution

The meeting may have been delayed but when the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump took place on Thursday, it yielded a forward-looking agreement.

Sitting down for talks at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing, the two leaders agreed to make stability a key goal of relations over the next three years – and beyond, according to state media.

Trump also invited Xi and first lady Peng Liyuan to visit the White House, setting the date for September 24.

The common ground marked a reset in relations within a new framework.

“I have agreed with President Trump on a new vision of building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability,” state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

This framework should extend for the next three years or even longer, Xi said, while also warning that Taiwan would be the main obstacle to the envisioned stability.

“If [the Taiwan issue] is handled well, bilateral relations can remain stable, if it is messed up, the two countries will have frictions or even confrontation and draw China-US relations to a dangerous place ... The US side must handle the Taiwan issue with great caution,” Xi was quoted as saying.

While tensions have beset ties between the two countries, the focus on Thursday was squarely on positive messages.

The formalities began with an elaborate welcome for Trump and his entourage of officials and business leaders outside the hall.

The stage was set with a precision military band and hundreds of flag-waving children, and the two leaders strolled along the red carpet inspecting an honour guard of People’s Liberation Army soldiers.

Trump introduced his top aides one by one to Xi, who shook hands with each of them, including US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio – a target of Chinese sanctions.

The delegations then went inside for the summit, which lasted more than two hours.

Later, Xi and Trump toured the Temple of Heaven before returning to the Great Hall of the People for a state banquet.

Throughout the day, Xi and Trump praised each other.

Trump referred to Xi as a great leader and a friend, thanking him for the “magnificent welcome like no other”.

“I say it to everybody. You’re a great leader. Sometimes people don’t like me saying but I say it anyway because it’s true,” the US president said in his opening remarks at the summit.

Xi said China and US could be partners rather than rivals, and that “realising the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can coexist, complement each other and benefit the world”.

The long day of activities was an unusual change for the presidents and officials from the two sides to interact at a personal level, an approach that analysts said would be important in shaping the dynamics of communication between the two countries.

For example, Hegseth was seen chatting with his opposite number, Defence Minister Dong Jun, at the banquet on Thursday night.

And Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun was seen taking a photo with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. A hashtag of the encounter rose to the top of Weibo’s tech trending list, with more than 10 million views.

Beijing also reportedly reserved the exclusive Capital Club for casual networking among business chiefs from both countries.

Sun Chenghao, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, said Xi and Trump had “established a healthy relationship of mutual respect and appreciation and it has important meaning to China-US relations by itself”.

“State-leader diplomacy has always been the ballast of China-US relations,” he said, adding that personal relations between the two leaders were key to stopping crises from escalating.

In a statement about the talks, Xi expanded on the need to keep bilateral relations on an even keel.

He said the “strategic stability” of the new framework should be benign in nature to make sure competition between the two countries did not get out of control, and it should become a norm to keep differences between the two countries manageable.

It should also be characterised by proactive cooperation and peace.

However, the White House’s brief comments on the talks made no reference to the framework.

It described the summit as a “good meeting” and said both sides agreed to enhance economic cooperation, including more market access for US businesses in China.

It also said China expressed interest in buying more US oil to reduce dependence on the Strait of Hormuz, and agreed that the strait should remain open for free transport of energy.

According to Beijing, Xi reassured the United States that China’s door would be open and it welcomed deeper cooperation in areas such as the economy, agriculture and military exchanges.

While Xi was clear about his warning on Taiwan, it was not certain just how much the issue was covered in the talks.

As the two leaders posed for photos at the Temple of Heaven, Trump was asked by a journalist about whether the topic was discussed – a question he chose to ignore.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that Trump would say more on Taiwan “in the coming days”.

Chinese analysts said Beijing’s statement showed that it wanted to build guardrails for stable manageable relations in the midst of competition.

“The notion of strategic stability was previously used to describe nuclear deterrence by big nations, the crux was to prevent conflicts from going out of control in order to maintain long-term peace,” Sun said.

“Applied to China-US relations, this means that both sides want to build a stable and manageable framework for conversations to prevent competition from getting out of control and sliding towards confrontation.”

He added that the three-year time frame indicated that China was cautiously optimistic about maintaining such stable relations during the remainder of Trump’s term.

Diao Daming, an international relations professor at Renmin University, said Beijing hoped that the new definition could help turn around the US perception that China was a rival.

“[Beijing] is also hoping to extend the general stability of China-US relations. The stability has prevented relations from further deteriorating and it is hoped there will be a norm based on long-term stability and peaceful coexistence.”

Diao added that Beijing hoped the competition between the two countries, such as in high technology, would not affect stability.

“It should not be a struggle of life and death, or a matter of winners and losers,” Diao said. “It is merely a competition for excellence that does not undermine overall stability.”

Those hopes were telegraphed through symbolism. For example, Trump was greeted by dozens of young people at the airport on Wednesday and over a hundred children outside the Great Hall of People on Thursday.

“I think I was particularly impressed by those children. They were happy, they were beautiful. The military is obvious, it couldn’t be better, but those children were amazing,” he told Xi before the summit began.

However, Chinese analysts expressed caution that US domestic hostility against China could not be changed easily.

“While China’s policy direction remains consistent, US domestic political constraints and systemic differences leave Washington’s level of commitment [of realising the goal of strategic stability] an open question,” said Zhu Junwei, executive director of the Beijing-based think tank Horizon Insights Centre.

Zhu pointed out that while Trump suppressed anti-China sentiment leading up to his visit, it was not clear if doing so would serve his political interests upon his return. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST