Xi Jinping’s Washington visit was more than ceremony and trade deals. The US and China are building a more stable relationship around regular summitry, negotiated differences and mutual recognition of power. Australia needs to understand what has changed.

Last week, on the tarmac of Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, a key moment in global affairs occurred. Not since JFK met Harold Macmillan in 1962 had a US president welcomed a visiting head of state at the airport. The symbolism was as profound as it was considered. Through that gesture the US president was acknowledging that China was a co-equal power with the United States.

It must have been particularly satisfying to President Xi. His presidency will be seen as one during which China rose from being a significantly weaker, challenging, ascendant power, to being acknowledged by the US as its equal. If Xi is looking for a legacy, this will surely be sitting on the mantelpiece.

The Washington meeting was the culmination of a reset in US/China bilateral relations that began in earnest last November at the Busan APEC leaders’ meeting. Trump flew to Busan and met only with Xi and then turned his back on the rest of the gathered leaders, announcing that he had just had a ‘G2’ meeting with Xi and looked forward to future meetings.

That meeting agreed on the ‘Busan Pause’ or the tariff truce. In May this year Trump visited Beijing and announced progress on one of the administration’s key priorities: tougher Chinese action against the fentanyl trade. The intention to establish a Board of Trade and a Board of Investment were also announced.

With the just-concluded Washington meeting, the media focus on ‘deliverables’ was understandable. But the US and Australian media covering Xi’s visit seem to have written their stories before it began.

The most predictable and ubiquitous headlines were different variants of the ‘all form........

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