In a closely watched meeting on Thursday that drew global attention, Chinese President Xi Jinping said he and US President Donald Trump agreed on a new vision of building a "constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability," a new positioning for bilateral ties, which Xi said would provide strategic guidance for the next three years and beyond.

The talks, which lasted more than two hours and 15 minutes, were widely seen as a significant step toward stabilizing China-US relations amid growing global uncertainty. Politicians, scholars and business leaders from around the world said the meeting sent a positive and reassuring signal to the international community, as relations between the world's two largest economies remain critical to global stability, trade and growth.

Many observers said that with political ties showing signs of stabilization, tensions in trade and economic areas could gradually ease, while deeper mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the United States would bring broader benefits to the world economy and peace.

New positioning sends signal of stability

Sun Taiyi, an associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University, told CGTN that the new positioning moves beyond the assumption that confrontation between the two countries is inevitable.

"Instead, it reflects a new phase in which both sides still compete, but increasingly seek mechanisms, communication channels, and mutual constraints to prevent rivalry from spiraling into systemic crisis," he said. "For the world's two largest economies, that itself is already a significant breakthrough."

Jesse Gates, a US-based scholar specializing in East Asian studies and a visiting professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said Xi once again compared China-US relations to a "giant ship" that both sides must steer together through cooperation.

He said building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability is an inevitable choice for future development, and China and the US working toward each other would benefit both countries and the world.

Robert Barwick, national chairman of the Australian Citizens Party, said Xi's description of the new positioning – emphasizing cooperation as the mainstay, moderate competition, manageable differences and promises of peace – was "what people hope to hear."

CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang said Trump's visit was intended to send a signal of stability to the world and demonstrate that competition between China and the United States had not escalated into confrontation.

Maria Fernanda Espinosa, former foreign minister of Ecuador and former president of the UN General Assembly, described the meeting as historic, saying friendly cooperation between the two major countries could make significant contributions to humanity.

She said discussions on trade cooperation and major international and regional issues are vital to the world, adding that the Beijing meeting sent a positive signal of cooperation amid diversity.

Pursuit of win-win cooperation seen as encouraging

Trump was accompanied on the visit by major US businesses representatives spanning sectors including technology, finance, aviation and agriculture, drawing significant public attention.

During talks with Xi, he said the United States and China are the most important and most powerful countries in the world, and the two presidents can "do a lot of big and good things for the two countries and the world." Trump encouraged representatives of the US business community to expand cooperation with China.

Jean Christophe Iseux von Pfetten, president of the Institute for East-West Strategic Studies in Britain, said economic prosperity remains a key goal for both China and the US. He said the significance of the summit lies in both countries agreeing to pursue win-win outcomes and contribute to global stability and peace.

NBC News reporter Brian Cheung said in a live broadcast that Trump bringing the CEOs of major American companies to China itself reflected Washington's willingness to reach an economic and trade agreement with Beijing.

Cui Hongjian, a professor at the Academy of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said economic and trade ties serve as both the "ballast stone" and "engine" of China-US relations. "As long as the two sides share sufficiently large common interests, political differences will not push the relationship too far off course," he said.

Cui added that as the world's two largest economies, China and the US share broad common interests, strong complementarities and vast room for future cooperation. As long as the overall relationship remains stable and both sides maintain constructive consensus, trade and economic frictions are expected to gradually ease alongside the restructuring of bilateral economic ties.

Jose Ricardo, CEO of LIDE China, an international organization that fosters business and partnerships between China and Brazil, said discussions between China and the US on the global economic order and global governance are closely tied to world stability and business confidence. He said it is greatly "encouraging" for the world to see the two major countries discussing "cooperation, coexistence, confidence and mutual trust."