Détente 2.0: Hoping for a Boring Summit in Beijing

Trump is weaker, and Xi is stronger, since their last summit in Beijing. But the U.S. does not have to remain in this state of weakness forever.

Since the first Obama administration, American presidents from both parties have identified the rise of China as a paramount national security challenge. In 2011, the Obama administration called for a pivot to Asia to counteract Beijing’s growing influence in the region. The first Trump administration went further, labeling the People’s Republic of China in the 2017 National Security Strategy a “revisionist power”—one that, according to then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, “is working to take down freedom all across the world.” President Biden’s administration signaled continuity, describing China in its 2022 National Security Strategy as “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order, and increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do so.” And in 2024, just months before becoming Secretary of State, Senator Rubio upped the ante on the Chinese threat, declaring, “Communist China is the most powerful adversary the United States has faced in living memory. We sometimes forget that past enemies, including Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, had smaller economies than we did.”

Many analysts concur, comparing the U.S.-China rivalry in the 21^st century to the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 20^th century. I recently wrote an entire book on this subject. In Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, I outlined a more nuanced perspective, tracing both similarities and differences between the old Cold War and U.S.-China relations today. But I agreed with others that managing relations with China is the most important American foreign policy issue in the 21^st century.

Later this week, the next major chapter of this superpower competition will unfold when President Trump attends a two-day summit in the People’s Republic of China with Chairman Xi Jinping. When he lands in Beijing, Trump will be in a much weaker position than he was when he first visited the Chinese capital as president in 2017. Some changes in the balance of power in favor of China have resulted from Xi’s policies, but Trump’s actions have also contributed to this shift. If we do not begin correcting these errors, we will lose out to China in this new era of great-power competition in the 21^st century.

China’s Continued Rise

Since Trump and Xi last met nearly a decade ago in Beijing, the Chinese economy has continued to grow, narrowing the GDP gap with the United States and surpassing it when measured on purchasing power parity (PPP). China’s global advantage in manufacturing is particularly striking, and now accounts for roughly 30% of global output compared to only 15% for the United States. Today, China’s success is no longer limited to low-value industries. The Hamilton Index, produced by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), tracks performance across 10 advanced sectors, including IT and related services, machinery and equipment, and pharmaceuticals. According to its 2026 report, China has been the global leader in aggregate advanced-industry output since 2013 and has continued to expand its market share since then, too. By contrast, the report said, the U.S. global market share has declined in seven of the 10 advanced industries tracked by the index since 1995. In the last decade, China has also made huge advances in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotech.

Over the long term, China’s economy faces big challenges, including the difficulties of moving from a middle-income to a high-income country, growing inequality, major demographic challenges, and policies implemented by Xi that are less friendly to the private sector. And while China’s economy continues to grow at a rapid pace, the American economy is growing too. Over the long run, I’m still betting that the U.S. economy will outperform the Chinese economy. But we have to get to the long run. In the short run, since the last Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, China’s economy has become much bigger and stronger.

China’s economic growth has enabled a major expansion of Chinese military might. Since the last Trump-Xi summit in 2017, Beijing has heavily invested in the production of ships, short-range and medium-range missiles, drones, and nuclear weapons. In my assessment, the United States remains ahead in military power, but the gap is rapidly closing, especially in Asia, where conflict is most likely. (For the detailed data, see Chapter Five of Autocrats vs. Democrats.)

In addition to bolstering China’s economic and military power, Xi and his comrades have pursued a systematic strategy to expand Chinese influence worldwide since the last Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing. Xi has actively maintained his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and investments by his Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank (AIIB); expanded the activities and memberships in many of his multilateral organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa); and increased China’s influence in United Nations bodies. Beijing has also invested in international media, embassies, educational exchanges, and other forms of soft-power influence. Also important is what Xi has not done. Unlike both Putin and Trump, Xi has not started a major war in the last decade.

America’s Relative (and Hopefully, Short-Lived) Decline

If the story of China under Xi is one of economic growth, military restraint, greater participation and interaction with multilateral institutions, and investment in soft power, then the story of America under President Trump has been almost the exact opposite. The United States’ position in the world is weaker now than it was at the start of the president’s second term in January 2025.

Most detrimentally, Trump’s decision to launch a major war against Iran in February 2026 has dragged the United States back into the Middle East at precisely the moment in history when we should be directing more of our military and economic resources to Asia. Not only has Trump’s Iran war resulted in tragic losses of life—both military and civilian—it has cost tens of billions of dollars already, and the long-term costs, as University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers recently explained, will be much more. It has also drained American stockpiles of weapons, especially missile defense interceptors, which are urgently needed in Asia to deter a war with China over Taiwan. In addition, the negative consequences of the Iran war for the global economy continue to grow, with rising energy prices affecting people in nearly every country, and that makes the United States increasingly unpopular around the world. Compared with Trump’s America, Xi’s China looks today like the responsible stakeholder in the rules-based international system. A global Gallup opinion poll showed, tragically, that more people (36%) now approve of Chinese leadership than of American leadership (31%). As Bob Kagan wrote recently in The Atlantic: “Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure.”

In addition, Trump, in his second term, has initiated major fights with our democratic allies, further diminishing U.S. power and influence. By threatening to invade Denmark, joking about making Canada the 51^st state, and cutting to near-zero U.S. economic and military aid to Ukraine, Trump has exacerbated tensions within NATO to historic highs. Allied relations in Asia are more stable, but Trump’s refusal to defend Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi when Beijing attacked her for making a supportive statement about Taiwan deeply troubled America’s Asian allies and partners, especially in Taiwan.

Third, Trump has introduced radical uncertainty in trade relations with most of the world. His irrational application of tariffs, especially on allies, has strained relations with American economic partners, with many now declaring that the international economic order the United States established at the end of World War II is over. If it finally collapses, American power in the world will be further diminished.

Fourth, even as Trump exercises aggressive unilateral force in Venezuela and Iran, he has not abandoned the isolationist tendencies on display during his first term. Trump does not like international institutions or multilateral organizations. To date, he has pulled out of (1) the Transpacific Partnership (TPP); (2) the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal), which many forget was between Iran and six countries, including China, not just a bilateral agreement between the United States and China; (3) the Paris Climate Accords, and (4) numerous UN bodies, including the World Health Organization, UNESCO, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, and the UN Democracy Fund. Trump is also threatening to withdraw from the World Trade Organization and even NATO. Xi is doing the exact opposite, growing Chinese influence in multilateral organizations originally created by the United States (e.g., the United Nations) and expanding those international institutions anchored in Beijing (e.g., the SCO, BRICS, BRI, AIIB).

While China has been expanding its instruments of soft power over the last decade, Trump tried to destroy many of them in the first year of his second term, including most dramatically the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Trump also fired some of our most experienced ambassadors and reduced the number of diplomats at the State Department. Xi is doing the exact opposite, making China now the country with the most diplomatic posts (274) in the world.

Trump also has shown no interest in supporting democratic ideas, leaders, or movements worldwide. In the ideological struggle between autocracy and democracy in the 21^st century, Trump’s indifference—if not outright hostility— to democracy promotion amounts to unilateral disarmament. Public opinion polls show that most people worldwide prefer democracy to dictatorship. But the United States cannot leverage this ideological advantage now unless we signal our continued support for democracy, freedom, and liberty.

Negotiating Temporarily from Weakness

Beijing understands this shift in the global balance of power since Trump and Xi last met in 2017. CCP leaders seem confident (in my assessment, overconfident) in predicting America’s decline and China’s rise. When Trump tried to impose new tariffs on China last year, Xi—unlike most other world leaders—did not acquiesce, but fought back, threatening to disrupt supplies of critical minerals to the United States. Trump backed off. In fact, Trump travels to Beijing this week with few coercive instruments left in his arsenal. He most certainly has no leverage to compel Xi to implement structural economic reforms (an aspiration of Trump’s first administration) I suspect the tough talk of Trump 1.0—of seeking to contain the spread of Chinese power and influence around the world—will be replaced this week by statements about “peaceful coexistence.” In another sign of weakness, Trump administration officials have been calling on Xi to pressure Iran to capitulate to the United States, asking Chinese diplomats to do what the American military has failed to accomplish so far.

This moment reminds me of détente in the 1970s between the United States and the Soviet Union. Back then, the Soviet Union was the rising power, and the United States was the declining power—or so it was perceived at the time. For now, détente might be the best that can be hoped for. As in the 1970s, a good outcome from this summit might be superpower agreements to cooperate on shared security and economic goals, such as controlling artificial intelligence from its most dire uses, like making biological weapons, or expanding bilateral trade commitments incrementally. Hoping for more is unrealistic. Xi feels little pressure to offer the United States concessions right now. The worst outcome would be Trump being too eager to announce “a big economic deal,” and thus signaling publicly less support for Taiwan than previous presidents. Trump lifting more export controls in pursuit of an ambiguously defined, hard-to-implement “big economic deal” would also be imprudent. At this moment in history, a boring summit will be a good outcome.

The Long Game

Détente, as historian Niall Ferguson argues, bought time for the United States during the Cold War. After containment overreach in Vietnam and polarization at home, the United States needed to recover, rebuild, and renew. The same must be done now. Over the long run, future American leaders must strive for more than just détente or stalemate with China and devise a new, more effective strategy to compete with China than Trump is doing today. Détente 2.0 must also be accompanied by Competition 2.0. We did both during the Cold War. We can do so again.

Such a strategy must first and foremost include deeper cooperation with allies. America alone does not compare favorably with China regarding the bilateral balance of economic or military power. However, when democratic allies are added to the question, the free world has significantly more military might and economic capability than China and its autocratic partners.

A second part of a new strategy for American renewal must more tightly bring together the economies of the free world, just as the United States did after World War II. Of course, failures of past international institutions, like the WTO, must be addressed—but by reform, not abandonment. Trying to compete economically with China alone, and without any rules or multilateral organizations at all, is sure to fail. In this domain, Trump’s Pax Silica is a notable achievement but far too modest to meet the Chinese challenge.

Third, when deepening economic engagement with democracies around the world, future American leaders must also stimulate economic innovation and growth at home through greater investments in research and development and education, and new immigration policies that attract once again the best and brightest from around the world. To compete with China in the 21^st century, we cannot just try to trip up their companies. We must also run faster.

Fourth, future American leaders must recommit to the basic principles of the rules-based international system, even when that means abiding by constraints on the unilateral use of American power. We cannot do what we want one day and then expect others to adhere to international rules the next day. Sustained unilateralism will accelerate American decline. Reengaging with multilateral institutions—both existing ones and new clubs anchored by the United States—will stimulate the renewal of American global leadership.

Finally, future American leaders must again appreciate the value of supporting the ideas of democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, and devise new strategies for doing so with other democratic countries more effectively. It’s one of our most competitive advantages.

Reversing the damage done by President Trump will not be quick or easy. Devising and implementing a comprehensive strategy for American global leadership will take decades. Therefore, a new détente with China may be the best we can hope for right now. That’s why I’ll be hoping for a boring summit this week.