The Thinker | No. 05/2026
There is a parallel between the 1924 Mallory-Irvine Everest expedition and the recent visit of Donald Trump, President of the United States (US), to Beijing. Trump reached the summit after a delay of six weeks. The outlines of topics discussed are known, but much of the detail remains shrouded in cloud.
Yet, one development stands out. Wang Yi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), claimed that a ‘most important political understanding’ was reached: a new characterisation of relations as a ‘constructive relationship of strategic stability’.
Whether this typically clunky phrasing will come to symbolise US-PRC relations in the next few years will only become apparent with the passing of time. However, it is highly revealing of how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to proceed.
First, however, to clear the decks…
The American shopping list
Understandably, Iran was a top concern. Given the PRC’s oil imports from the Gulf region, as well as its considerable investments there, Trump will have wanted Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CCP, to lean on Tehran to raise the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. Trade, in the form of purchases of Boeing aircraft, agricultural goods, and petrochemicals, was an important area, success in which would allow Trump to play up his deal making abilities – and, with an eye on the November midterm elections, to claim a victory that would impress voters. The establishment of boards for trade and for investment was also on the agenda. On a personal level, Trump relishes the chance to be in the limelight.
The Chinese shopping list
The CCP habitually declares Taiwan to be the core of its core interests. Xi began his exchange with Trump with Taiwan: ‘Handled well, the overall stability of the bilateral relationship can be maintained. Handled poorly, the two countries will collide or even come into conflict, pushing the entire China-US relationship into a very dangerous situation.’ This was echoed by Wang Yi at a press conference after the visit had concluded: ‘…the Taiwan question is the most important issue between China and the US; one that affects the entire relationship.’
Preserving as much access as possible to the American market and to technology will surely have been a major Chinese aim. For example, Chinese vehicles are currently banned from the US. The PRC seeks access to the highest grade of semiconductors that Washington will allow to be exported. Pressure to relax restrictions in such areas must surely have been on the CCP’s agenda.
Agreement to agree – but on what?
A clearer outline of the summit may emerge over the next few months as specific measures are announced – or not announced. Xi, unsurprisingly, talked of the need to open the Strait of Hormuz, but will he – indeed, can he – do anything to bring that about? There is a parallel with the Taiwan Strait, which the CCP claims is its to control.
This makes it more difficult for Xi to put pressure on the Iranian regime, which claims the same for Hormuz. Maintaining good relations with Tehran now might also be useful for maintaining cheaper oil supplies later, even if at present oil flows are curtailed. However, even if Xi were to apply pressure, it is doubtful that the Iranians would yield: they currently have a powerful weapon in the fight against the US, and they will not abandon it lightly.
Finally, while Xi may have promised Trump not to send arms to Iran – a promise easily given, since proof of delivered weapon systems would blow up Beijing’s claims of being an agent of peace – there is every likelihood that the supply of Chinese components and resources (as opposed to the weapons themselves) will continue, thus helping the Iranian war effort. Even if the CCP is not encouraging the supply, there are few incentives to police it out of existence. Compare Ukraine.
How Trump will react to Xi’s broadsides on Taiwan may become evident from whether he gives the green light to the US$14 billion (£10.4 billion) arms sale to Taiwan currently awaiting his signoff. However, he is unlikely to do this soon after the summit, which would explode whatever good will has been built up.
Trump could divide the sale into smaller packets – not that the CCP would be fooled, but they might choose to make less of a fuss. If he has made approval contingent upon the PRC not supplying Iran with weaponry – although it feels unlikely that Xi would sit down to negotiate around such a proposition, given denials of arming Iran – the definitions of what constitutes ‘weaponry’ and ‘verification’ might lead to considerable friction. Yet, putting weapon supplies to Taiwan into the negotiation basket with the PRC would be an enormous break in the American stance hitherto. It seems unlikely, even if Trump prides himself on his unpredictability.
In the technology sphere, the coming months will show whether the US will put further restraints on Chinese access to American chips, and also on allowing goods with Chinese technology, particularly relating to internet connectivity, into the American market. The summit made no mention of these areas, where in the past there has been some ambiguity. For example, granting access to Nvidia H200 chips contrasts with the Federal Communications Commission putting Chinese drones and routers on its prohibited lists.
Both sides agreed to the establishment of boards to discuss trade and investment. Here, the devil is in the details – or in what counts as sensitive goods and technology. Electric Vehicles (EVs) and green energy are obvious areas for investment given Chinese technological leadership, but automobiles and the automotive industry are emotive subjects for Americans, and Trump favours oil and gas over hydrogen and solar energy.
There will also be bitter arguments between those who worry about the energy supply needed to power Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data and those for whom security is the top priority. Tariff regimes may be relaxed on non-technological goods – Scott Bessent, US Secretary of the Treasury, referenced the import of fireworks (perhaps not the most tactful of choices given the recent explosion in a Hunan factory, which caused many deaths) – but which tariffs and by how much?
Progress in other areas was similarly hazy; AI governance for one. Bessent said that the US and the PRC would ‘set up a protocol in terms of how we go forward with best practices for AI to make sure non-state actors don’t get a hold of these models’. This sounds as though talks are at a very preliminary stage.
‘Strategic stability’ – the CCP’s real aim
In what Wang Yi described as, ‘the most important political understanding they [the two leaders] reached’, Xi, ever the theorist and thinker, introduced a new concept to describe relations with the US: a ‘constructive relationship of strategic stability’. He defined its four pillars as:
Positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay;
Sound stability with moderate competition;
Constant stability with manageable differences; and
Enduring stability with promises of peace.
This is a highly revealing move. Most surprising is that a Chinese academic should spell out why. Wu Xinbo, Director at the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University, candidly wrote that: ‘If over the next three years we can realise a relationship of constructive strategic stability between China and the US, then for China, it extends our period of strategic stability and wins time and space for our development (emphasis added).’
The CCP does not trust Trump, regarding him as inconsistent at best, and a leader who will be out of power in under three years. It knows that, apart from the President and a few of his inner circle, there is bipartisan support in Washington for a harsher line on the PRC. It has noted an increasing turbulence in international relations, and has been consistent in a belief that American policy boils down to one of repressing and restraining the PRC’s rise.
A clear strategy has emerged in what the CCP sees primarily as a science and technology struggle or war: build self-reliance, particularly in these fields; avoid dependencies on the US and its allies; and, where possible, create American dependence upon the PRC. This is the underlying logic of the 15th Five-Year Plan, promulgated in March, in which the first two main targets are:
Significant progress in high-quality development (i.e., modernisation of existing industries and development of ‘new-quality productive forces’ through science and technology progress); and
Substantial improvement in the level of self-reliance and self-strengthening in science and technology.
So a major CCP aim – if not the major aim – of the summit was to continue the current truce in otherwise hostile relations, which resulted from the PRC’s successful strategy of withholding rare earth supplies. The longer that truce lasts, the greater will be Beijing’s development and power, and the less it will have to bow to American pressure.
There is a further gain to the PRC from Xi’s new contribution of ‘strategic stability’ to great power politics: in turbulent times, the concept portrays the country as the force for stability. It also allows the CCP to define any future measures taken by Washington which it dislikes as blatant disregard for an agreement freely entered into.
Not only does this reinforce the current propaganda theme (i.e., that the US is a force for disruption in the world, in contrast to the PRC standing for peace and stability), but it would also give the CCP a stick with which to beat the US; that of failure to adhere to agreements. This helps in the battle for the allegiance of the so-called ‘Global South’ and other countries.
Plenty to fight over
Apart from the issues already outlined, there remain plenty of others which could lead to tension or worse between the two powers: control of the Panama Canal and ports; support for countries such as the Philippines (a large joint military exercise with the US has just concluded); freedom of navigation and flight in the South China Sea; espionage and interference in the US, where new cases are increasing in frequency; and media freedom cover just a few. The CCP’s recent assertiveness will not disappear, although it may be tempered in pursuit of buying ‘strategic stability’ to achieve self-reliance.
Friendship
Still, asked to name the summit’s most important achievement for the United States, Mr Trump told Fox News’ Bret Baier: “I think the most important thing is relationship. It’s all about relationship.”
“It sounds like something that doesn’t mean anything, but it’s everything,” Mr Trump said.
If Trump truly believes this, he joins a long line of leaders who have excelled in self-deception. Chinese leaders do not have personal relationships with foreign counterparts. They are, however, masters of hiding a ruthless pursuit of interests underneath the rhetoric of friendship and an overwhelming display of precision protocol, pomp, and pantomime. Allowing for introductions and formalities at the start and end of meetings, interpretation that halves the time, photographing and more, the leaders will have exchanged views for less than four of the nearly nine hours they were together.
These are formal occasions and formal exchanges in the presence of delegations or interpreters, hardly conducive to the establishment of personal relations. It is true that occasionally the personal chemistry between leaders can make a difference. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, for example, clearly liked each other. But they shared a language, both literally and politically, as well as many aspects of culture. The same cannot be said of Xi and Trump – nor of Xi and Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
If, as Trump says, at the meeting in Beijing the personal relationship was everything, the free world should be worried. Will anything else emerge from the clouds of hype? Nobody should hold their breath: oxygen can be thin at summits.
Charles Parton OBE is Chief Adviser to the China Observatory at the Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Research Fellow in International Security at RUSI.
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