New Delhi: Chinese President Xi Jinping is in the US for a state visit that Beijing is portraying as an opportunity to put a more stable footing under its increasingly complicated relationship with Washington.
Xi, who is visiting the US from 23-25 September at the invitation of US President Donald Trump, will meet the American president just four months after Trump’s state visit to China in May. The two leaders had then agreed to work towards what they called a “constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability”.
In the past two days, China’s state-run Global Times has repeatedly returned to that phrase, describing the latest Xi-Trump meeting as an attempt to give greater predictability to ties between the world’s two largest economies.
But what does Beijing appear to want from the meeting?
Stability, without ending competition
The Global Times’ coverage in the run up to the meeting suggests China is not presenting stability as the end of rivalry between Beijing and Washington.
An editorial published ahead of Xi’s visit described the proposed relationship as one where cooperation remains possible alongside competition and differences. Another commentary broke the idea down into four principles: cooperation as the mainstay, competition within limits, managing differences through dialogue and maintaining peace.
That distinction is important because trade, technology and security remain major sources of friction between the two countries.
The message from Beijing, as reflected in the Global Times coverage, is therefore less about resolving every disagreement and more about preventing those disagreements from destabilising the wider relationship.
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Trade and technology are key
Economic ties feature prominently in the coverage.
Chinese and US officials held economic and trade consultations ahead of Xi’s visit, discussing bilateral trade and investment as well as artificial intelligence. Global Times quoted Chinese experts as saying continued talks were necessary to implement earlier agreements and reduce trade friction
Veteran US diplomat Chas W. Freeman Jr, who served as an interpreter during former US president Richard Nixon’s 1972 China visit, told Global Times that both countries should concentrate on areas where their interests overlap.
He pointed to trade, climate change, nuclear non-proliferation and management of the global economy as areas where cooperation remains possible despite ideological and political differences. Freeman also argued that the two countries should stop trying to hold back each other’s development and instead compete by becoming more competitive themselves.
AI is another emerging area. Global Times reported that the two sides discussed AI during their latest economic consultations, while one US academic interviewed by the newspaper said cooperation on AI governance could be an area where Beijing and Washington work together.
Why keep talking when tensions remain?
One argument running through the recent coverage is that regular contact itself has value.
Freeman told Global Times that losing contact could deepen mutual suspicion and eventually turn it into hostility. He argued that the two countries need to rediscover the logic behind the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué: China and the US have different political and socioeconomic systems, but can still cooperate where their interests overlap.
Global Times has also highlighted people-to-people exchanges, including American students travelling to China and Chinese and US businesses expanding into each other’s markets.
An editorial published Wednesday pointed to Chinese bubble-tea brands operating in the US and American fast-food chains expanding in China as examples of what it described as “everyday” connections between the two societies.
What could come out of the meeting?
The recent Global Times coverage does not point to a single expected breakthrough. Instead, it stresses incremental progress: keeping trade relations stable, expanding practical cooperation, managing disputes and maintaining regular communication between the two governments.
That does not mean the major disagreements have disappeared. Global Times itself noted that stability does not remove the problems between Beijing and Washington, while another commentary identified Taiwan as a major underlying variable in the relationship.
The broader message from the coverage is therefore relatively straightforward: Beijing wants the Xi-Trump meeting to reinforce the framework agreed by the two leaders in May – competition without uncontrolled confrontation, cooperation where interests overlap, and dialogue when differences persist.
Whether that produces concrete agreements will depend on what Xi and Trump are able to achieve at the table.