Chinese President Xi Jinping has hailed a “new positioning” of ties with the United States following his summit with US President Donald Trump in Beijing.
Trump’s visit, the first by a US president in nearly a decade, comes as the Iran war weighs on domestic approval ratings ahead of US mid-term elections.
According to a Chinese foreign ministry statement, Xi and Trump agreed that building a “constructive, strategically stable relationship” would guide ties over the next three years and beyond.
Xi described the relationship as one based primarily on co-operation, but with measured competition and manageable differences.
The language marks a shift away from recent framing centred on strategic rivalry and conflict avoidance.
Analysts see push for greater stability
Analysts said the new wording signals China’s desire to place relations with the US on more stable footing.
The framework echoes the “constructive strategic partnership” language proposed in 1997 following the Cold War and reflects Beijing’s effort to establish more predictable guardrails around the relationship.
Joe Mazur, a geopolitics analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, said the language reflected a push for more institutional stability.
“It’s new language and I think it reflects China’s desire to put more institutional guardrails around US-China relations, both competition and cooperation,” he said.
Wang Wen, a professor at Beijing’s Renmin University, said the framework represented a significant departure from earlier “negative characterisations”.
“The core distinction lies in its emphasis on a positive model of interaction marked by co-operation as the mainstay, together with measured competition, manageable differences and a foreseeable prospect of peace,” Wang said.
Taiwan remains a flashpoint
Despite the more conciliatory language, tensions remain over issues including Taiwan, Iran and US sanctions on Chinese firms.
Xi said the US should exercise “utmost caution” in handling Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by China.
“If handled poorly, the two countries could collide or even enter into conflict, pushing the entire China-US relationship into an extremely dangerous situation,” Xi said.
Xi also referenced the “Thucydides Trap”, a concept in foreign policy theory that describes the risk of conflict when a rising power challenges an established one.
Analysts said the comments highlighted continuing strategic tensions beneath the more stable diplomatic framing.
