When Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump met in Beijing, in May, they agreed that their two countries should build a constructive relationship of strategic stability. Although many observers in Washington responded skeptically to this new framework, dismissing it as empty words, it marks the first time in more than a decade that China and the United States established a consensus about how to define the relationship that leaders on both sides broadly recognize. Strategic stability does not refer to nuclear détente; rather, it suggests a new equilibrium in which both sides can avoid further deterioration of the relationship and even expand cooperation where interests align.

Leaders in Beijing do not expect that this new framework can resolve most of the differences between China and the United States or that it can stop new frictions from emerging. In June, for example, the U.S. Department of Defense placed more Chinese companies—including private-sector giants Alibaba, Baidu, and BYD—on its list of firms involved in civil-military fusion activities, barring the Pentagon from contracting with them. In retaliation, China placed ten U.S. entities on its dual-use export control list, which prevents any company from supplying them with items that have the potential for both military and civilian use. But Beijing hopes that a consensus built around strategic stability can help China and the United States manage their differences more effectively and that it will prevent the worst outcomes: military conflict or a new cold war. So far, ongoing friction has not derailed the overarching consensus established in May. By keeping sanctions and countermeasures relatively limited, Beijing and Washington have avoided dangerous escalation and kept the relationship moving forward.

The goal of the new diplomatic framework between Beijing and Washington is a pragmatic one. It aims to build a floor under U.S.-Chinese relations rather than try to achieve an unlikely grand bargain that would resolve all conflict. It also represents a changing approach in Beijing to dealing with the United States. Unlike in the past, when China rejected U.S. frameworks focused on competition, it is now willing to recognize that the fundamental nature of U.S.-Chinese relations is competitive. Allies or partners, after all, would not set strategic stability as the overarching goal of their relationship; only competitors, or even adversaries, need to do so. Beijing’s willingness to accept a formulation to manage, rather than exclude, competition shows that it is gaining confidence and seeing itself more as an equal to Washington. Adopting this confident mindset could lead China to act with more restraint in its dealings with the United States—which could in turn bring a further degree of calm to the relationship.

It now appears plausible that bilateral relations have turned a corner and entered a more stable phase. Although fundamental challenges remain that could cause new turbulence, the peak tensions of the past eight years may well be receding. The upcoming leaders’ summit in late September, when Xi and Trump are scheduled to meet in Washington, is a chance to further move the relationship forward. The two leaders can now add more concrete measures to support this new framework of strategic stability, including taking steps to reduce economic friction, increase military-to-military communications, improve crisis management mechanisms, expand citizen exchanges, and offer reassurances about Taiwan, thereby defusing tensions that could escalate into potentially catastrophic military conflict. With Xi and Trump likely to meet again multiple times in the next few months, the new framework is the first chance in years to lay the groundwork for enduring stability in bilateral ties.

BEYOND STRATEGIC COMPETITION

For a long time, leaders in both Beijing and Washington sought to define the bilateral relationship in terms of some kind of partnership. In 1997, when Chinese leader Jiang Zemin visited the United States, Beijing and Washington announced aims of “a constructive strategic partnership oriented toward the twenty-first century.” In 2005, the George W. Bush administration urged China “to become a responsible stakeholder” in the international system; Chinese leader Hu Jintao responded in 2006 that the two countries were not only stakeholders but “should also be constructive partners.” But between 2009, when President Barack Obama and Hu agreed to “steadily grow a partnership” to address common challenges, and the Trump-Xi summit earlier this year, the countries’ leaders were unable to reach a new consensus on how to position the relationship.

The United States moved away from seeing the relationship as a partnership earlier than China did. During Trump’s first term, the United States began to define U.S.-Chinese relations in terms of “strategic competition.” At first, China tried to accept the competitive element in bilateral relations. Beijing acknowledged that some competition was inevitable while hoping that the relationship could remain positive overall. But as U.S.-Chinese relations deteriorated sharply in the final year of Trump’s first term and continued to worsen into the Biden administration, Beijing began to see “strategic competition” as a narrative designed to foreclose China’s rise. It felt that the U.S. approach threatened its development prospects, leading Beijing to push back more forcefully against the concept. In July 2022, during a phone call with President Joe Biden, Xi told his counterpart that it was a mistake to make competition the defining feature of the relationship.

To policymakers and analysts in China, the framework of........

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