Beijing summit matters more than immediate headlines

By Einar Tangen

For years, the dominant assumption surrounding US-China relations was that deterioration had become irreversible and the world's two largest economies were drifting toward a modern version of the Thucydides Trap, the historical pattern where rising and established powers slide into conflict.

Yet what unfolded in Beijing last week may force us to reconsider that assumption.

The easy interpretation is to dismiss the summit between the two heads of state as just optics: Washington received Boeing headlines and export announcements and Beijing gained goodwill while projecting confidence and stability.

But the reactions afterward suggest something more substantial may be emerging — the outline of a "grand bargain", a strategic understanding where both sides continue competing, but within mutually recognized limits designed to avoid systemic rupture.

The agreement to define a "constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability" reflects concepts that Beijing has pursued for years: managed competition, coexistence, and recognition that neither side can eliminate the other from the international system.

For China, stability is the prerequisite for peace and progress.

The appeal of a broader bargain also exists on the US side, especially for the Donald Trump administration.

A grand bargain with China offers it the ability to reframe its policy as the mechanism that produced peace and strategic advantage — reduced tensions between the world's two largest economies, expanded US exports to China, and stabilized global supply chains.

This explains why the Beijing summit may matter far more than the immediate headlines suggest.

The deeper issue is whether Washington and Beijing are beginning to accept a common reality — that neither side can achieve absolute dominance without imposing catastrophic costs on itself and the world; that China is not collapsing; and that the US remains indispensable to global finance, technology, consumption, and security architecture.

And most importantly, both countries now require stability more than escalation.

If Beijing and Washington are now exploring ways to manage global strain together rather than intensify it, historians may eventually look back at this summit very differently from the way contemporary commentators initially framed it.

Truly seismic shifts in geopolitics rarely announce themselves clearly and more often first appear as optics.

Einar Tangen is a commentator on US current affairs. The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.