Trump's team appeared overly impressed by the red-carpet treatment in China. This public display of admiration ceded valuable "face" to Beijing without securing substantive concessions, a move that Chinese leadership would likely never reciprocate.
Xi leverages state visits to project strength to a domestic audience, particularly given economic struggles. However, unlike predecessors Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, Xi's grip on power is so firm that this external validation is a marginal benefit rather than a crucial source of legitimacy.
In a strategic move to accelerate self-sufficiency, China is refusing to import even permitted lower-end US tech like NVIDIA chips. This seemingly counterintuitive decision forces domestic AI labs to channel all purchase orders to homegrown champions like Huawei, strengthening the local supply chain despite short-term costs.
The U.S. pushes for crisis management and arms control talks, but China remains highly resistant. Beijing perceives these dialogues not as a path to stability, but as a strategic trap, believing that similar engagements weakened the Soviet Union and ultimately led to its collapse.
Since the 2001 EP-3 incident, China learned that "going dark" during a crisis serves two purposes. Internally, it allows leadership time to deliberate. Externally, it functions as a powerful negotiating tactic that unnerves American policymakers and grants Beijing leverage to control re-engagement.
Historically, the U.S. traded diplomatic form (e.g., pageantry) for substantive policy concessions from China. Trump's intense focus on receiving "face" flips this dynamic, allowing China to achieve its substantive goals—like buying time from U.S. pressure—at the low cost of theatrical praise.
The US public and private sectors are overwhelmingly focused on AI, creating a potential strategic myopia. In contrast, China's five-year plan reveals a more diversified portfolio approach, with heavy investment not only in AI but also in green energy, robotics, and other critical technologies.
The current lull in US-China tensions should not be mistaken for a stable détente. It's a temporary stalemate born from mutual leverage recognition. Both nations are using this pause to fortify their domestic capabilities and supply chains for the next round of competition.
By hosting both Trump and Putin consecutively, Xi Jinping has reframed the "G2" concept. Instead of a fixed US-China partnership, China is now positioned as the central hub, capable of forming a "G2" with either the US or Russia, making Beijing the indispensable arbiter of global power dynamics.