A descendant of a Flying Tigers veteran pays floral tribute at a monument at the Nanjing  Anti-Japanese Aviation Martyrs Memorial Hall in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, on July 16. The Flying Tigers, officially known as the American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force, fought  alongside Chinese forces against Japanese aggression during World War II (XINHUA)

The question of how China and the United States manage their relationship stands as the defining test of our times. Against a global landscape marked by accelerating geopolitical changes, intertwined turbulence, shifting power dynamics and pervasive uncertainties, President Xi Jinping's state visit to the United States on September 23-25 was a historic milestone that defined a new paradigm for great-power interaction. As Wang Yi, Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Foreign Minister, elaborated, this visit advanced a clear, actionable blueprint for major-country coexistence, yielding far-reaching strategic, practical, people-to-people and global implications.

The substance behind the symbolism

This year saw the leaders of the two countries stand in each other's capitals within a single six-month period. In May, U.S. President Donald Trump was received in Beijing. In September, President Xi arrived in Washington, D.C.—the first Chinese state visit to the United States in 11 years. The imagery was carefully staged and, by historical standards, was unprecedented. When President Xi's aircraft touched down at Joint Base Andrews on the evening of September 23, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were waiting on the tarmac. There followed military bands playing both national anthems, a 21-gun salute, a state dinner decorated in China Red, a handshake in the Rose Garden and a joint visit to the National Archives.

Some Western commentators were quick to dismiss the pageantry as substance-free. That verdict reveals more about the lens through which the visit was read than about the visit itself. Diplomacy is not a contest between symbolism and substance; symbolism is one of the vehicles through which substance is delivered. In every serious relationship between major countries, ceremony encodes recognition—the exact terms on which two governments are willing to meet.

The ceremonial choices of this visit were not mere decorations but, in fact, important decisions. As Wang described, these meticulously designed ceremonial arrangements reflected the U.S. side's "full respect for President Xi and high regard for the China-U.S. relationship."

Expanding and clarifying the guiding principles 

The centerpiece political outcome of the visit lies in the further enrichment of the new framework for China-U.S. ties. Back in May, the two heads of state agreed to build a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability, defined by four pillars: positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay, sound stability with moderate competition, constant stability with manageable differences and enduring stability with promises of peace. During this state visit, President Xi and President Trump expanded this framework to a full formulation: a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability on the basis of respect, fairness and reciprocity.

Respect means accepting each other's sovereignty, territorial integrity, each other's chosen social systems and development paths, together with each side's core interests and major concerns—an explicit renunciation of the conviction that one system should prevail over the other.

Fairness rejects the logic of zero-sum competition and the pursuit of unilateral absolute advantage and advocates mutually beneficial cooperation and negotiated settlement of disputes, with trade, technology and security disputes to be settled through equal consultation rather than coercion or unilateral restriction.

Reciprocity affirms equal sovereignty between the two nations, rejects hegemonic bullying and calls for addressing respective concerns on an equal footing and balancing cooperation across sectors.

This is not empty rhetoric. It is a strategic framework that will guide the world's two largest economies for years to come, a framework that explicitly rejects the Thucydides Trap—the proposition, borrowed from an Athenian historian, that structural rivalry between a rising and an established power must end in war. That premise has always been a historical generalization dressed as a law. The theory's own history is instructive: It is a reading of the Peloponnesian War, not a law of physics, and the cases marshaled to support it have always been selective. States choose, and the choice is made visible in the institutions they build and the norms they accept.

President Xi's state visit was an answer to that proposition: The trap is a choice, not a destiny. By agreeing on a vocabulary of management rather than a logic of inevitability, the two leaders placed the relationship on the path of peaceful coexistence rather than being doomed to conflict.

From consensus to action

A strategic framework carries weight only when translated into action, and the visit was dense in concrete commitments. The two sides reached eight deliverables and understandings spanning trade, counter-narcotics law enforcement, AI governance and international and regional affairs, turning the vision of constructive stability into tangible progress.

On trade, both sides agreed to reinvigorate economic and trade working groups to resolve frictions through consultation. The new joint arrangement establishes the Board of Trade, reaches an arrangement for a reciprocal tariff reduction covering approximately $30 billion worth of goods imported from each other, and extends the outcomes of the earlier Kuala Lumpur economic and trade consultations. These are not abstract pledges. Mechanisms such as the Board of Trade give the relationship a permanent machinery for negotiation, so that frictions can be absorbed through structured dialogue rather than being allowed to escalate into tariffs and decoupling. The effect is stabilizing in both directions: They restore business confidence, anchor expectations for industries and workers on both sides of the Pacific and make the costs of rupture legible to the decision-makers who would have to bear them.

On AI, both sides acknowledged a shared responsibility as the world's two leading AI powers and agreed that cooperation, not mutual suspicion, should define the relationship. China and the United States may have competition, President Xi observed, but they may cooperate even more. The right thing to do is to draw on each other's strengths, not guard against each other, he said during talks with his U.S. counterpart at the White House.

On law enforcement, the two countries deepened counter-narcotics cooperation, including joint operations that have disrupted transnational smuggling networks and repatriated fugitives. Agricultural exchanges, climate coordination, public health collaboration and subnational ties are all to be reinvigorated.

The deepest significance of these arrangements is institutional. The Board of Trade and other mechanisms are to survive changes of administration and convert a relationship that has often lurched from crisis to crisis into one that is, at least in part, institutionally managed. Regular dialogue creates space to clarify intentions, correct misperceptions and contain incidents before they spiral. The working principle is pragmatic and durable: cooperate where possible, manage disputes where necessary and keep communication open even when views diverge. This is the core meaning of competition with bounds and differences under control.

Consolidating the social foundation 

Bilateral diplomacy cannot endure without robust bonds between peoples. History repeatedly demonstrates that when people-to-people links thrive, China-U.S. relations move forward; when such connections are severed, prejudice and distorted narratives gain ground. The historical references carried a comparable weight: over 200 years of trade, more than 80 years since the two countries fought together against Japanese militarism, half a century since Ping-Pong Diplomacy reopened the door, including the American airmen rescued by Chinese civilians during World War II, and the Chinese desert-control campaigner reunited with an American friend decades after trees they had planted together had grown into a forest. In an age of technological rivalry, these stories assert an older and more durable reality: The two great peoples have long found each other valuable.

President Xi announced that China would welcome 100,000 American young people to study and visit over the next five years, building on the earlier five-year initiative, which invited 50,000 American youths and was completed two and a half years ahead of schedule. Two giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, are to settle in Zoo Atlanta, sustaining a cross-Pacific symbol half a century old. Chinese roses, admired by the American president during his spring visit to Beijing, were sent to the White House as a gesture of goodwill. The two couples toured the National Archives together, echoing the American president's earlier visit to the Temple of Heaven in May, embodying the understanding and respect between China and the United States for each other's history and culture.

Renewed exchanges help Americans encounter a genuine, multidimensional China, and give Chinese citizens clearer insight into the United States, countering oversimplified stereotypes amplified by vocal minority on both sides. These human ties act as shock absorbers when official relations hit rough patches, providing resilience that official communiqués alone cannot supply.

Much-needed strategic certainty 

The significance of the visit extends well beyond the bilateral relationship. A stable and constructive China-U.S. relationship is itself a public good in a world of international and regional crises, energy and security shocks, and technologies that outpace governance.

The two leaders affirmed mutual support for each other as China will host the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting and the United States will host the Group of 20 (G20) Leaders' Summit in the final quarter of the year and agreed to coordinate on questions ranging from the Middle East to the postwar international order, and on global economic governance, climate action and regional hotspots. On the Middle East, China has urged dialogue and the resumption of negotiations, including the return to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding and a comprehensive settlement of the Iran nuclear issue, grounded in the conviction that force resolves little and that reopening dialogue, however difficult, is preferable to closing it.

The deeper message concerns the shape of the international system itself. China advocates a world of multipolarity and shared prosperity, and explicitly disclaims spheres of influence and exclusive military blocs. The point is that the coexistence of the two major countries is not a private arrangement; it is a precedent, a reference point for state interactions across all continents. A stable and constructive relationship between China and the United States would make the global order more predictable; a relationship defined by escalating rivalry would make it more dangerous for everyone. If the major countries can choose dialogue over conflict, the logic of bloc confrontation weakens everywhere. This is why the framework negotiated in 2026 matters to countries worldwide: Their strategic environment is shaped by the stability of the relationship as complex and consequential as the one between China and the United States.

The alternative is not hypothetical. The 21st century has already supplied ample evidence of what great-power relations defined by fear produce: confrontation that makes neither side safer while imposing costs on both, on their trading partners and on the international order itself. The visit's significance is to have made that alternative legible once more and to have shown that it can be refused.

The honest test

None of this should be read as an expectation of easy progress, and the visit carried no such illusion. Structural differences will persist; misjudgments and frictions will recur. President Xi was candid about the winding nature of the road ahead, and Beijing paired its stated sincerity with an equally explicit list of five red lines: China's sovereignty, security and development interests are not negotiable, as well as the Taiwan question, the democracy and human rights narrative, the choice of system and path, and the right to development.

To the United States, the visit carried a clear proposition: The two countries' dreams are not mutually exclusive. As President Xi put it, realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can be mutually reinforcing. To the rest of the world, the demonstration was broader: The Thucydides Trap is not a law of history but a choice, and it can be rejected.

The hardest work begins after the aircraft departs. The honest test of the constructive relationship of strategic stability is therefore not the warmth of a state dinner but the consistency of subsequent action: whether commitments survive the next crisis, whether the machinery of dialogue holds when put under strain, whether the list of areas for cooperation grows faster than the list of grievances. Summit consensus means little if it is not implemented faithfully and forged through concrete and consistent actions. Promises must match practices; words cannot be followed by actions that erode the agreed framework. The framework is best understood as a compass rather than a destination, as a set of principles that must be translated, department by department, into policy if it is to mean anything.

The road ahead will have twists and turns—but the direction of travel is itself the achievement. The path lies right beneath our feet. Choosing to walk it is a decision that must be made anew, every day, by both sides.

The author is an independent commentator on global affairs 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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