Like so many events in these days, the meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump 14-15 May was highly clarifying of thew new geopolitical reality. Xi again managed to overwhelm Trump with the pomp and circumstance of his authoritarian state. The image of PLA soldiers goose-stepping past a row of American oligarchs at the airport nicely illustrated the current political reality of both sides. The summit’s outcome makes clear Beijing can live with this if it means it gets the respite of another period of strategic opportunity to work on China’s weaknesses and challenges.
There were no major breakthroughs. The White House does not seem to have had much in mind beyond stabilisation. For Beijing, that outcome is the goal. The Party has given up on the idea that the problems with the United States can be solved. However, in middle of the current global uncertainty China sees strategic opportunities. What Beijing needs is time – time to consolidate the Chinese rise and to let the supposed Western decline play itself out.
This goal was made crystal clear by the new guiding phrase Xi launched to describe relations with the United States: ‘a constructive China–US relationship of strategic stability’ (中美建设性战略稳定关系, zhōng měi jiànshèxìng zhànlüè wěndìng guānxì). In China such phrases are always important signposts for every part of the system. Already, Chinese state media and Foreign Minister Wang Yi are expounding on this new term. Both stress the central role of head-of-state diplomacy as the lodestar of China–US relations. It is Trump and his relation with Xi that offers this opportunity for a new type of Sino-American relations.
The invocation of ‘strategic stability’ immediately reminds me of the older phrase ‘period of strategic opportunity’ (战略机遇期, zhànlüè jīyù qī). This term points to Beijing’s judgment that China had to hold itself back somewhat in order to seize the chance to make big strides toward the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation.
In 1997, a ‘constructive strategic partnership’ with the US was proposed. In 2002, Jiang Zemin introduced the ‘period of strategic opportunity’ notion, describing the first two decades of the 21st Century as an ‘important period of strategic opportunity’ of twenty years. This built on Deng Xiaoping’s ‘hide your strength, bide your time’. The assessment was that the international environment was favourable for China to focus its energies on development to build its great power status.
That assessment had clearly weakened by 2018. Analysts began to argue that the period had closed, referring to Xi Jinping’s more assertive foreign policy and the harsher containment attempts by the US. At the 2014 Central Foreign Affairs Work Conference, Xi Jinping still called for extending the period of strategic opportunity. Yet, in time that commitment weakened as Xi’s confidence and challenges grew. Trump’s election and the pandemic moved the focus of the conversation to Xi Jinping’s ‘great changes unseen in a hundred years’ (百年未有之大变局 bǎinián wèi yǒu zhī dà biànjú). However, the excitement that China’s moment had finally come was mixed with trepidation about remaining weaknesses and economic challenges.
Then, Trump was re-elected. His relaunch of trade war with Beijing caused some initial trepidation, yet the way things have played out since softened the assessment. Beijing and Washington discovered the strength of China’s own export control measures. US allies in Europe and Northeast Asia bore the brunt of ideological attacks from the White House. Meanwhile, Trump signalled an eagerness to meet Xi as equals. In March 2026 then, observers took note when Defence Minister Dong Jun told the PLA its task was ‘safeguard the period of strategic opportunity’ at the Two Sessions. Has the term returned? [EDIT: In light of the recent CICIR report on US-China relations, it would have been more accurate to position their ‘period of transition from old to new’ (新旧转换期 xīnjiù zhuǎnhuàn qī) as the potential successor term for this new era of temporary stalemate, which is very different from the period of strategic opportunity.]
The new ‘constructive China–US relationship of strategic stability’ phrase is significant in this context. It signals that Beijing is eager to engineering a return of the period of strategic opportunity with the United States — a structured window in which Beijing can focus on China’s significant domestic and international challenges without a direct confrontation with its principal-contradiction adversary. In particular, on the road to the expected 21st National Party Congress in October 2027 as well as the vital Taiwanese and US presidential elections in 2028, now is the moment for consolidation. This time, however, that consolidation will be international as well as domestic.
So, Beijing did not go into the summit hoping for deals. The Guo Ji Ping commentary in the People’s Daily published before Trump’s visit suggested the appeal would be for coexistence. The summit was about buying time. That time will be spent usefully. China can use the American retreat to work on its problems abroad as well as at home. The EU is now discovering what that means. Threats against its new cybersecurity rules and industrial policy has been followed by interference with its foreign subsidies investigations. Pursuing strategic stability with the current hegemon is a separate matter from dealing with countries and regions that are not the principal contradiction of international relations in the New Era.
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