Trump and Xi ended their Washington summit by creating channels to manage a dangerous relationship, while leaving its central conflicts intact.
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping closed a three-day Washington state visit with an agreement to establish a bilateral channel for incidents involving advanced AI, activate trade and investment boards created earlier this year, and continue high-level meetings. The practical result was less a breakthrough than a way to keep the world’s two biggest powers talking while their disputes over technology, trade, Taiwan and Iran remain unresolved. The story is not that rivalry disappeared. It is that both governments decided it needs guardrails.
Trump and Xi ended their Washington summit by creating channels to manage a dangerous relationship, while leaving its central conflicts intact.
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping closed a three-day Washington state visit with an agreement to establish a bilateral channel for incidents involving advanced AI, activate trade and investment boards created earlier this year, and continue high-level meetings.
The visit’s real achievement was making U.S.-China competition more manageable without making it less dangerous.
When the biggest powers cannot settle their rivalry, keeping them talking becomes the deal.
When the biggest powers cannot settle their rivalry, keeping them talking becomes the deal.
Primary evidence first. Reporting second. Inference labeled.