Donald Trump’s state visit to China was a performance of diplomacy: Carefully choreographed, heavy on optics, and light on binding detail. Both sides were eager to show progress: Trump called the visit “very successful”; Xi Jinping declared it “historic”. The Chinese catered to Trump’s weakness for spectacle with the state banquet, the parting tea, and Xi accompanying Trump to the Temple of Heaven – but the substance, as expected, was meagre. Significantly, Beijing, not Washington, controlled the narrative throughout.

Trump needed a foreign-policy “win” to serve as a distraction from the political headwinds of the Iran war, and to impress markets and domestic constituencies. Xi needed validation: That China had weathered the tariff storm, emerged from geopolitical friction with its strategic position intact, and was now being courted as a peer by the US, something Chinese leaders have long sought. Both got what they came for. But Xi got a little more.

The new formulation — “constructive strategic stability” — for the bilateral relationship, described by Foreign Minister Wang Yi as “the most important political consensus” of the summit, is Beijing’s handiwork. It is a deliberate conceptual move to displace the American vocabulary of “strategic competition” with a Chinese-preferred notion of long-term coexistence with guardrails. Beijing acknowledges the relationship as competitive but talks about keeping it within acceptable limits. Xi’s four-part elaboration — “positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay, healthy stability with competition within proper limits, constant stability with manageable differences, and lasting stability with expectable peace” — is designed to lock in the post-Busan........

© Indian Express