Neither exclude nor dominate: The new rules of China-US engagement

(Edited and refined by Candice Chan, with the assistance of AI translation.)

Under the full moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded his state visit to the US. The Chinese and US presidents have exchanged multiple visits within less than five months — something unprecedented even during the honeymoon years of China-US relations.

Much of the attention surrounding this latest visit focused on the pomp and pageantry. US President Donald Trump and his wife made the exceptional gesture of personally receiving Xi at the airport, while the visit featured a White House gun salute, a fighter jet flypast, a state banquet and tea, as media images were full of red carpets, raised glasses and cordial exchanges. After the severe strains in China-US relations in recent years, seeing Washington extend such a warm welcome to its guests from Beijing felt almost like stepping back into another era.

The media naturally asked: the optics were impressive, but what about the substance? That is a fair question. But to dismiss ceremony as mere optics may be to seriously underestimate its significance.

Ceremony matters

Only a few years ago, China and the US were grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic amid an escalating trade war, chip war, sanctions and countermeasures, and relations at one point descended into confrontation on virtually every front. Politicians and the media on both sides traded harsh rhetoric, at times even demonising the other, and many forms of interaction once regarded as routine increasingly came under scrutiny through the ever-expanding lens of national security. In the US, taking a tough line on China became one of the few policy positions commanding strong bipartisan consensus. Once hostility persists for long enough, it becomes embedded in bureaucratic behaviour and social attitudes.

Ceremony, of course, cannot resolve specific differences between the two countries. A state banquet will not change tariff policy, nor can a handshake erase disagreements over technology and security. But after years of serious friction, the way the two countries’ top leaders publicly treat each other has a direct bearing on how their societies perceive the relationship.

When a US president accords a Chinese president an unusually high level of ceremonial respect, the message goes beyond personal goodwill. It helps reset the tone of bilateral engagement: routine contact with China need not automatically be regarded as a political risk, while maintaining communication and even cooperation with Beijing can still be consistent with US national interest.

Such a shift will not happen overnight. Cordial exchanges at the White House will not change the behaviour of airport enforcement officers the following day, nor will they immediately dispel the doubts and wariness that have taken root over the past few years in American universities, businesses and government agencies. But if the highest levels of government continue to signal a desire for better relations and renewed engagement, it could gradually reduce the political pressure felt by bureaucracies and institutions when dealing with China.

Political hostility can filter downwards; so can political respect. This is why ceremony can have practical consequences. It cannot produce agreements in itself, but it can open up political space and create the environment and psychological conditions needed for engagement to resume. For a China-US relationship that has endured years of confrontation, that in itself has considerable practical value.

Three ‘constraints’ of China-US relations

Ceremony, however, is only the surface — the more important takeaway from this visit is that the structural foundations of China-US relations have changed.

During the visit, the two sides affirmed their intention to define bilateral ties as “a constructive relationship of strategic stability based on respect, fairness and reciprocity”. Put more plainly, what is emerging is a relationship of competitive coexistence.

After nearly a decade of trade wars, technology restrictions, sanctions, countermeasures, deterrence and negotiations, a new structural reality is taking shape. It can be summed up in three “constraints”: neither side can exclude the other, neither can dominate the other, and neither can remake the other.

The first is most evident in economics, technology and trade. The US can use its advantages in high-end chips, advanced equipment, capital and technology to constrain China, which in turn can leverage its manufacturing scale, vast market and control over critical raw materials such as rare earths to push back. Both have the capacity to inflict considerable damage on the other, but any attempt by either side to shut the other out of the global economic system would come at an intolerable cost to itself, and neither can exclude the other.

The second is most apparent in the military and strategic spheres. As China’s military capabilities have grown rapidly, particularly its ability to deny access in the western Pacific, the US can no longer assume that it can operate freely there without incurring enormous costs. Yet China is equally incapable of forcing the US and its alliance network out of the region. Each has the capacity to prevent the other from establishing uncontested military and security dominance, and neither can dominate the other.

By the same token, China cannot base its long-term strategy on the assumption that the US will inevitably decline and eventually withdraw from Asia, or that the American political system is destined to suffer a fundamental crisis. If anything, the competition of recent years has demonstrated that both China and the US are far more resilient than the other once assumed.

Coexistence is unavoidable, but stability is not guaranteed

The first two constraints have produced a balance of capabilities; the third, a balance of expectations. Yet none of this means that China-US relations will be smooth sailing from here.

This is not an optimistic forecast of the relationship, but an assessment of the structural realities constraining both sides. Since neither can exclude, overpower or remake the other, long-term coexistence has become unavoidable. But having to coexist does not mean the two sides will necessarily do so peacefully or stably.

This also explains why the latest visit combined unprecedented pomp and ceremony with relatively limited substantive breakthroughs. The fact that the tariff truce was ultimately extended by only two months is itself a reminder of just how difficult these problems are to resolve.

The US midterm elections are approaching, while the 2028 presidential election will further reshape the domestic political environment and the debate over China. Furthermore, the personal relationship between Trump and Xi will not automatically translate into the policies of the next administration. Nationalism, domestic politics and unexpected crises could once again push the two sides towards the brink. The three constraints limit how far either side can ultimately go, but they cannot prevent both countries from repeatedly testing those limits.

The key task in the next phase of China-US relations, therefore, will be managing differences, many of which may have no definitive solution for the foreseeable future. Trade will require repeated rounds of negotiations; boundaries will have to be established around technological competition; crisis-management mechanisms will need to be put in place; people-to-people and educational exchanges will have to be rebuilt gradually.

Strategic stability does not mean an absence of conflict — it means keeping conflict within bounds so that it does not spiral out of control.

China-US relations are often compared to a marriage. Over the past few years, a “divorce” appeared almost inevitable, while “decoupling” and “breaking supply chains” became part of the everyday vocabulary. But truly separating these two superpowers — and the global economy intertwined with both — would have seismic consequences.

The reciprocal visits show that China and the US still share substantial common interests, as well as common responsibilities that neither can easily shirk. “Divorce” is therefore not an option to be spoken of lightly.

One recurring problem in a marriage is the desire to change the other person to fit one’s own expectations. A mature relationship often begins when both sides let go of that impulse, accept that their differences will not go away, and learn to live with them. Countries are, of course, not married couples, but the underlying principle is not entirely different.

A new reality has already emerged, but attitudes and perceptions in both societies have yet to fully catch up with it. Drawing attention to this gap is part of the responsibility of scholars who study China-US relations.

The full moon of Mid-Autumn will not make those differences go away. The challenge now is for both sides to learn restraint even as they continue to compete, maintain communication despite their differences, and manage the risks inherent in long-term coexistence. As China and the US redefine their relationship, these are the new realities that both will have to face.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “中美相敬如宾的背后——新定位、新格局、新预期”.

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