Editor's Note: Taiyi Sun is an associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University in the United States. He is also the executive editor of the Global Forum of Chinese Political Scientists' main publication, Global China. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The long-anticipated meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in Busan, the Republic of Korea, was more than a diplomatic headline. It revealed the emerging structure of China-U.S. relations: a system no longer defined by unilateral pressure or unbounded confrontation, but by what might be called strategic symmetry – a fragile equilibrium of rivalry, mutual dependence and restraint.

Washington's two logics

The leaders' summit reflected an intense tug-of-war within Washington itself – between the national security hawks who see China as an existential threat, and Trump's own brand of mercantilist pragmatism.

Trump's post-meeting remarks were telling. He first highlighted Beijing's agreement to purchase American soybeans and other agricultural products – a symbol of his transactional instincts. When asked about high-tech exports, he went further: Chinese firms, he said, could deal directly with Nvidia to buy advanced chips, and "that's a good thing." To the hawks in Washington, this sounded reckless. To Trump, it was common sense: selling more and importing less narrows the trade deficit, whatever the commodity.

This divergence of logic encapsulates the fault line in current U.S. policy. For the security establishment, exporting advanced chips risks eroding America's technological edge. For Trump, trade – even in sensitive goods – remains a tool of economic arithmetic. He views commerce not through the lens of deterrence, but through that of profit and balance sheets. Hence, his push to expand U.S. energy sales to China alongside agricultural exports – a clear echo of his "America First" mercantilism.

Trump's worldview and the 'G2' imagination

Before the meeting, Trump declared on social media that "THE G2 WILL BE CONVENING SHORTLY!" The phrase was revealing. In his worldview, the world order is anchored on two poles – the United States and China – with Europe, Japan, India and others orbiting at a lower tier.

Trump's decision to pause further escalation reflects an understanding that the two powers have reached a rough parity in key domains. Unilateral pressure no longer works when each side can retaliate with comparable force. In that sense, the "rare earth versus chip" balance has become a microcosm of the broader relationship: each weaponized tool limits the other's freedom of action, making reckless escalation increasingly self-defeating.

Both sides, through painful experience, now recognize the cost of all-out confrontation. Complete decoupling is neither realistic nor affordable. Each exchange of sanctions and counter-sanctions helps both sides map the other's red lines, gradually shaping a language of deterrence through practice. How long this forced coexistence lasts depends less on ideology and more on political discipline – the ability of both capitals to translate short-term tactics into a stable rhythm.

The stabilizing role of leadership diplomacy

The leaders' meeting itself played a stabilizing role. It reaffirmed that the top-level communication channel – the "leader-to-leader line" – remains open and operational.
 Under current conditions, this vertical model of diplomacy – where leaders set the tone, ministries execute, leaders finalize, future meetings of leaders are announced – has become indispensable. As long as the political intent from the top is clear, negotiating teams can move toward concrete outcomes. The modest and expected deliverables from Busan may seem technical. Yet they create what one might call a cooling framework: not a breakthrough, but a guardrail. It slows the spiral, rebuilds predictability and buys time before the next storm.

The challenge now is to prevent the relationship from oscillating between crisis and truce.
 So long as China-U.S. interactions follow the cycle of "move → retaliate → negotiate → rollback," neither side can build durable trust. The next step should be institutionalization: routinized leader-level communications, predictable ministerial dialogues, and clearer cost-benefit mapping before either side acts. In other words, each side must understand the likely response before playing its next card. If that discipline can be maintained, the relationship could settle into a managed steady state – a competitive coexistence punctuated by cooperation on global challenges such as peacemaking, AI governance and public-health preparedness.

In this sense, the Xi-Trump meeting in Busan was less about symbolic warmth than about procedural restoration. It demonstrated that dialogue, even in a hardened competition, remains possible, and that the world's two largest economies can still use diplomacy – not to erase differences, but to manage them.