Chinese and US representatives met on Tuesday in Beijing to discuss ways to boost political trust, expand economic and trade cooperation, and explore joint efforts in technology and artificial intelligence, with the aim of building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump set the new paradigm for the constructive relationship of strategic stability at their historic meeting in May, said Liu Haixing, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee (IDCPC), in a keynote speech at the third China-US Track 1.5 Dialogue.

"That has provided strategic guidance for China‑US ties over the next three years and beyond," Liu told the semi-official meeting, a format that sits between Track 1 of formal diplomacy and Track 2 of non-governmental exchanges.

In his May talks with Trump, Xi said the constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability should be a positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay, a sound stability with moderate competition, a constant stability with manageable differences, and an enduring stability with promises of peace.

"President Xi put forward this idea of a constructive relationship of strategic stability and President Trump endorsed that idea. That would be the guiding framing for the relationship," said John L. Thornton, co-chair of the Asia Society Board of Trustees, who attended Tuesday's dialogue.

Thornton told China Media Group (CMG) that he is optimistic that there are a lot of possibilities for progress built upon that framework.

The new positioning of China‑US relations lays the groundwork for both sides to find areas of alignment, and the Track 1.5 Dialogue serves as one positive signal, said Craig Mundie, the US co-chair of the China-US AI Track 2 Dialogue.

"If you listen to the conversations here, people are now hunting for activities that we can do that align with this slogan," Mundie told CMG on the sidelines of Tuesday's dialogue.

Trade and AI top the agenda

Launched in 2023, the China‑US Track 1.5 Dialogue has yielded a raft of practical recommendations to boost bilateral engagement on politics, commerce and trade, technology and people‑to‑people ties.

The latest gathering comes at a critical moment for China-US ties, giving both sides space to address pressing bilateral issues and explore where the relationship may head next, with trade and artificial intelligence (AI) high on the agenda.

"Business has always been a central part of the US-China relationship," said Craig Allen, former president of the US-China Business Council.

The two sides have exchanged technologies and grown together, Allen said, adding that he is hopeful that both will make progress to deepen the business relationship, rather than to decouple.

"To decouple will make us both poorer and neither side can afford to decouple," he said.

In its June report, the US‑China Business Council found that 80% of surveyed US companies view the Chinese market as important or very important to their global competitiveness.

Official figures from China's General Administration of Customs in July show that bilateral China-US goods trade expanded 13.7% year on year in the second quarter of 2026.

Attendees of Tuesday's dialogue also urged China and the US to work together to manage various risks posed by AI, and to open up more room for cooperation on the technology.

Such appeal comes amid recent reported US government actions, including stricter curbs on Chinese large‑language models and pressure on third countries to pick sides between US and Chinese AI ecosystems.

Christopher Nixon Cox, grandson of former US president Richard Nixon and founder of the Nixon Dialogue, said AI is a critical issue on which the US should work together with China.

"We've seen a lot of things, of AI escaping sandboxes recently," Cox told CMG, referring to a series of incidents involving major US AI models. "This is very worrisome and is a critical issue for our time."

Both China and the United States need to take leadership for the protection of humanity, he urged. "If China and the United States are fighting each other on AI, then humanity will be in trouble potentially."

Chen Dongxiao, president of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said Tuesday's dialogue featured a sincere and constructive atmosphere as participants laid out their concerns and expectations in a pragmatic manner with thorough information‑sharing.

Chen expressed hope that useful proposals and consensus‑oriented ideas from the talks could be translated into concrete policy actions, particularly to advance substantive cooperation on AI governance and youth programs between Beijing and Washington.

Liu, the IDCPC head, called on both China and the US to keep sending clear and consistent policy signals, and find solutions to each other's core concerns in the spirit of equality, respect and mutual benefit.

"The year 2026 is important for China‑US relations. What we hope to see is both sides demonstrating strategic vision and actively exploring the right way for the two major countries to get along with one another."