President Donald Trump hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House on Thursday (September 23, 2026), the world’s two biggest powers appear to be looking to extend their truce. As U.S.
In May, when Mr. President, to the surprise of many observers, readily accepted. In the lead up to the visit, the two sides held talks in New York between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, including to set up a dialogue mechanism for AI cooperation. The broader reason for a continued truce, in the view of Da Wei, was the narrowing power differential between the two countries. “It is less anxious that competition will undermine its national development prospects. Instead, Beijing believes that competition can be effectively managed without presenting an existential threat. Li Kai, the Vice-President of the influential China Institutes for Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) in Beijing, argued in the lead up to Mr.
Trump visited Beijing , both sides declared their commitment to build a “constructive relationship of strategic stability”, a Chinese coinage that the U.S. Comment | A China-U.S. summit that drew global attention “The rapid development of technologies such as AI will make it particularly difficult for either the U.S. or China to eliminate the other’s sources of leverage,” he said. “China is looking at bilateral relations from a position of greater equality and with more confidence,” he said. Xi’s visit that “regional affairs should be led and managed by Asian countries themselves”. “This is consistent with the principle of ‘Asian solutions to Asian problems’,” he said. “Confronted with an increasingly complex regional security landscape, we must fend off external interference, seek common ground while reserving differences, proactively manage divergences and facilitate peaceful settlement of disputes.”
