Why China must reject Trump’s ‘G2’ narrative

In transitions of world order, an incumbent hegemon typically seeks to defend its supremacy through bilateral, one-on-one dealings with the rising power, while the latter often attempts to mobilise other actors to counterbalance pressure from the hegemon.

This was true 80 years ago, and it is true now.

Eighty years ago, the UK and the US held differing visions of the postwar world order. As an established hegemon, the UK sought to retain its dominion over the world and imperial preference system by forging behind-the-scenes collaborations with the US in the Bretton Woods process, which was, in effect, a G2-style co-governance arrangement. In contrast, the US relied on the Bretton Woods conference to craft a new world order and to sideline the UK, which ultimately amounted to a more multilateral approach. 

Eighty years later, the US has abandoned multilateralism and turned to a bilateral, Turnberry-style trade and investment relationship with the world. In particular, it is increasingly wary of China’s industrial and market power, while sparing no effort to kick it away from the ladder. China, in response, engages with the US in a spirit of unity through contestation, while resorting to multilateralism to withstand pressure from the US.

One major difference between the two scenarios is that China today is still falling behind the US in many critical aspects, while 80 years ago, the US had grown much more powerful than the UK. Nevertheless, an important similarity exists between them: China prioritises multilateralism over G2, just as the US did 80 years ago.

Ahead of the Xi-Trump summit in Beijing last week, China took a contesting, and even aggressive, approach in two noticeable matters against the US for its own interest. First, it initiated a national security review on US tech company Meta’s acquisition of Chinese AI enterprise Manus and blocked the move, the first time it had happened in the AI industry. Second, in another first, China rejected recent American sanctions on five Chinese refiners for buying Iranian oil, effectively criminalising compliance with American law.

China’s combative position is reminiscent of its refusal to bend the knee to Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs last year, where China stood up and won global admiration for winning a series of intense “arm wrestling” with the US, first seen in the jacking up of tariffs between the two countries, then in the escalations of export controls over rare earths and advanced semiconductors.

It was through contestation that the US was forced to the negotiating table last year, and this time is no exception. At the summit, both sides decided to establish a trade council and an investment council to manage trade and investment flows between them, which will help stabilise their relationship.  

Trump acknowledged China’s global position by reviving the term “G2” on the sidelines of the APEC meetings in South Korea last October. The term was first coined in the 2000s as a symbol to advocate for a duo of superpowers leading the world.

By adopting the rhetoric of G2, Trump seemed to talk more freely about America’s readiness to accept the rise of China and to collaborate with China for a win-win future. 

All this appears to be a big change in American attitude towards China from what it was in the past decade, when an anti-China campaign was the sole common ground that could unite a divided America.

However, Trump’s underlying intention — to treat China consistently as the foremost threat to the US — was reflected in his National Security Strategy 2025, albeit with a revised approach focused on inducing, encouraging, and pressuring allies and partners to take the lead in opposing China.

Unfortunately, this changed strategy has gone nowhere, as the US has been bullying its allies and partners mercilessly at the same time; and it forces them to de-risk from the US, and to diversify their trade. 

In fact, Trump has inherited elements of the Biden administration’s China policy — “invest, align, compete” — with a notable difference in approach under the second pillar, namely to pursue alignment through intimidation rather than through the provision of public goods.

The call for middle powers to unite for a new path, as made by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at Davos, as well as Canada’s pivot to China after over seven years of hostility between the two countries, marks a pragmatic choice by middle powers amid great power rivalry.

The atmosphere of trust and cooperation in the international community has been much too thin. This is mainly due to the US’s unwillingness to play by the international rule of law, which it helped build over 80 years ago, but now criticises for having facilitated China’s rise. For example, Trump criticises the WTO for impeding the MAGA campaign and has pursued policies that, to quote WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, amount to “the largest challenge to the global trading system in 80 years”.

My sense is that only when the US feels secure may the good old days of trust and cooperation return. And the US will only feel that way when it sees that China’s rise is unstoppable, that there is no option but to cooperate, and that doing so is in America’s interest. Trump’s G2 rhetoric hardly represents such a moment.

Instead, a pragmatic vision of building a constructive bilateral relationship of strategic stability was formulated and agreed upon during the Beijing summit. The new concept of “constructive strategic stability” emphasises cooperation as the mainstay and places competition within proper limits, ultimately bringing stability and benefits to both, as well as to the world.

For Chinese foreign policymakers, the China-US relationship and multilateralism are their top priorities, both handled with utmost prudence and zeal. But the criticality of their bilateral relationship does not mean that China should accept the “G2” framing, which connotes more a plea for appeasement toward a more coercive US and runs counter to multilateralism.

Fundamentally, unlike the US, China does not view the world order from a position of strength. Rather, it sees significant power and potential in the Global South, and has pledged to stand with them consistently, even as it stands on the threshold of becoming an affluent economy itself.

Multilateralism, representing the global community’s institutional interests, is the pathway to a more just and equitable global governance system, quoting Xi’s Global Governance Initiative. For the sake of the Global South in particular, multilateralism offers an effective means to counterbalance American hegemony.

Going by the creed that “multilateralism either follows me, or I drop it”, the Trump administration is determined to keep disrupting international organisations by withdrawing from United Nations entities, cutting or delaying their budget payments, and attacking them for mission creep, ultimately forcing them to kowtow.  

The first-ever adoption of the G20 leaders’ declaration in Johannesburg last November, with sufficient consensus save the US, speaks to the fact that the world no longer shies away from the prospect of multilateralism without the US. Although Trump retaliated by refusing South Africa’s participation in the upcoming G20 summit to be held in the US, this unprecedented event may have ushered in a new era of “Multilateralism Minus America” (MMA), which has proven to be more effective, efficient, and influential than otherwise.

Related: China’s ‘new multilateralism’: A rival to the US-led order? | When Trump says ‘G2’, does he mean US-China co-governance?