Henry Huiyao Wang: From Strategic Rivalry to Strategic Stability

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Below is the latest comment by Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), on the outcome of U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with President Xi Jinping.From Strategic Rivalry to Strategic StabilityIt would be a disservice to treat US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing as a series of meetings about beans and Boeings. For all that the talks did not resolve many of the underlying tensions in US–China relations, they have already begun to redefine the relationship. Amongst the photo-ops and discussions, President Trump and President Xi Jinping have both embraced the need for strategic stability in the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship.For nearly a decade, Washington and Beijing have described one another primarily through the language of strategic rivalry. We now approaching a new phase: a transition from strategic rivalry to strategic stability between two deeply intertwined powers.US–China relations have never stood still. As the late Joseph S. Nye Jr. once observed in a dialogue with me, the relationship has moved through cycles of tension and accommodation. The first decades after 1949 were defined by hostility. The 1972 Nixon opening created a new period of strategic rapprochement. Through the 1990s we saw China integrate, joining the WTO and the US led economic order. Now in 2025, we stand at the midpoint of the latest 20-year cycle that began in the 2010s as the language of strategic competition and strategic rivalry came to dominate.History does not move mechanically according to schedule but it does seem like …