China Casts Beijing Summit as New G2 Framework While Trump Focuses on Trade

China Promotes a ‘New Order’ While the US Sticks to Trade

Beijing Seeks to Recast Ties as Washington Takes a Transactional Approach

The gap between Beijing and Washington in assessing the first US-China summit held in Beijing in nine years is becoming increasingly clear. China is portraying the meeting as a turning point that set a new benchmark for bilateral ties.

The US has moved in step with China on economic cooperation and trade stability. But it has shown little interest in any broader G2-style order centered on the world’s two biggest powers. That has fueled the view that the two sides came away from the so-called Beijing summit with sharply different aims.

In an editorial published on May 15, China’s state-backed Global Times said President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump met at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14 and agreed on a new vision to build “a constructive China-US relationship with strategic stability.”

Global Times editorials often serve as a channel for the views of the Chinese Communist Party and the government. The newspaper described the summit as establishing a new “positioning” for the relationship.

The Chinese term rendered in English as “positioning,” dingwei, carries a broader meaning than simple status or character. It refers to the direction and standing of ties between the two countries.

The paper said the framework would provide strategic guidance not only for the remaining three years of Trump’s current term but also for the relationship beyond that.

Xi had spelled out the meaning of constructive strategic stability a day earlier. He described four elements: positive stability centered on cooperation, healthy stability that keeps competition within proper bounds, lasting stability that allows differences to be managed, and long-term stability that makes peace predictable. Global Times said those “four forms of stability” offer a clear and workable blueprint for ties between the two countries.

“It is not a stopgap measure but a long-term solution, and not a zero-sum game but cooperation based on mutual benefit and win-win outcomes,” the newspaper wrote.

It also said building a constructive China-US relationship with strategic stability shows both countries intend, as major powers, to provide greater stability and more public goods to the world. Whether it is easing regional conflicts, responding to new challenges in global governance or opening new areas of human progress, all depend on stable, healthy and sustainable ties between China and the US, it added.

The editorial also underscored that the two leaders exchanged views on major international and regional issues including the Middle East, the Ukraine crisis and the Korean Peninsula.

Global Times also signaled expectations for cooperation in advanced science and technology. It said the business delegation accompanying Trump’s China visit had shifted from one centered on representatives from energy, aviation and agriculture to one led by technology executives and Wall Street figures. That, it said, clearly shows the scope of China-US cooperation is continuing to broaden and deepen.

The newspaper added that the seventh round of China-US economic and trade consultations, held in South Korea, produced balanced and positive results overall. Those practical steps, it said, vividly show how the new positioning is being translated into concrete action.

Trump, by contrast, strongly emphasized prospects for trade and business cooperation with China while making no mention of any broader repositioning of bilateral ties.

That echoed the gap in how the two sides described other issues. The White House said in a statement that both sides agreed the Strait of Hormuz must remain open and that Iran cannot be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. China, however, said only that the two leaders exchanged views on the situation in the Middle East.

Beijing=Kim Eun-jung, Korea Economic Daily correspondent kej@hankyung.com