Tokyo Report | Diplomacy | East Asia

The US-China Summit from a Japanese Perspective

Tensions are unlikely to ease.

U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a welcome ceremony with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, May 14, 2026.

The U.S.-China summit held in Beijing on May 14, 2026 has made it clear what shape U.S.-China relations will take for the remainder of the second Trump administration. Most notably, the term “constructive and stable strategic relationship” announced by the Chinese in agreement with the U.S. is likely to carry a host of implications.

Beijing had previously proposed a “new type of major-country relationship,” in which China and the U.S. would respect each other’s core interests, a state that the Chinese seemingly felt that the then Obama administration had accepted to some extent. However, bilateral relations deteriorated considerably toward the end of Obama’s time in office, and then the shape of relations became noticeably blurred during Trump’s first term in office. At the time, Japan was enjoying good relations with Washington, while China had normalized relations with Japan. That led to the famous episode when Chinese President Xi Jinping asked then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to convey Beijing’s intentions to Trump. Years later, and not much has changed.

With the inauguration of the Biden administration, China hoped to revive the new type of major-country relationship that it had managed to put in place with the Obama administration. It proved unable to do so. Rather, the relationship came to be framed as a “competitive relationship,” where the two sides agreed that they would avoid conflict, they would cooperate where possible, and that dialogue would be continued to properly manage relations. Under Biden, China and the U.S. worked together in areas such as climate change, while also holding a dialogue on national defense, diplomacy, and trade. Of particular note was the use of the keywords “no conflict” in this new type of international relations. Meanwhile, in the context of U.S.-China relations under Biden, Japan revived the term “mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests” with China, describing the relationship as building constructive and stable relations.

Since Trump returned to office, however, it has become a major stretch to argue that the shape of Biden-era U.S.-China relations has been maintained. To begin with, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was banned from entering China........

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