The U.S.-China relationship is on ‘tactical autopilot’ after the Xi-Trump summit. Maybe that’s not so bad

Chinese President Xi Jinping is now back in Beijing, following his three-day state visit to the U.S. During his time in Washington, Xi got a state dinner and a tour of the National Archives, where his host, U.S. President Donald Trump, showed him the U.S. Constitution and the first treaty between the U.S. and Qing-dynasty China.The record of actual achievements from the summit was small. Both sides said that Xi and Trump agreed to build a “constructive relationship of strategic stability on the basis of respect, fairness, and reciprocity,” and there were some small agreements involving trade and AI. Markets had diverging reactions to the summit on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.7%, while Mainland China’s CSI 300 dropped 2.2%. 

Yet given how far apart the U.S. and China are on a range of important issues—trade, export controls, the status of Taiwan, and today’s conflicts in Ukraine and Iran—it’s not surprising that few outside observers expected much to emerge from Xi’s trip to Washington.

“Expectations were low for this meeting and those expectations were met,” says Lindsay Newman, a visiting research fellow at King’s College London. 

Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University, agrees that the Trump-Xi summit  “fizzled out on substance, confirming the vast gulf between the two countries’ objectives and the lack of enthusiasm on either side to craft a grand bargain.”

But a summit short on substance may be precisely what’s needed. With neither side willing to make major concessions, Washington and Beijing appear to have settled for a more managed relationship, even as both countries rapidly try to decouple from the other.

“The bilateral relationship is on tactical autopilot and will likely remain so as long as Trump and Xi maintain a cordial working rapport,” says Ali Wyne, a senior research adviser on U.S.-China issues for the International Crisis Group.

The key agreement from the flurry of meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials was an extension of the tariff truce, first agreed last year in South Korea, for another two months. Both sides agreed to pursue lower tariffs on $30 billion worth of “non-sensitive goods” from each country. They also agreed to set up new........

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