Donald Trump is flying into Beijing with the world’s two most powerful rivals trapped in a dangerous bargain: they cannot trust each other, but they may no longer be able to afford a full rupture.
The summit with Xi Jinping, set for Thursday and Friday in Beijing, is not a diplomatic reset. It is a stress test for a fragile US-China truce built after years of tariffs, export threats, military tension, and strategic suspicion.
China is already framing the meeting in Cold War language. Its foreign ministry has revived the phrase “peaceful coexistence,” a warning dressed up as diplomacy. The message behind the language is that the world is too small for Washington and Beijing to crash into each other without dragging everyone else down.
A Summit Built On Fear, Not Trust
This will be the first visit by a US president to Beijing in almost nine years. The symbolism is heavy because Trump was also the last American president to go there, back in
...
Loading comments...