China-US ties: Managing differences through dialogue as equals

Editor's note: Abhishek G Bhaya is a senior Indian journalist and international affairs commentator for CGTN. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for a state visit, the significance of his meeting with US President Donald Trump extends well beyond the immediate issues on the bilateral agenda. Xi's September 23-25 visit, at Trump's invitation, marks the first Chinese presidential state visit to the United States in more than a decade and the second face-to-face meeting between the two leaders this year, following Trump's May visit to Beijing.

The White House has described it as a significant milestone, while Beijing has emphasized dialogue, cooperation and the proper management of differences.

The visit's program goes beyond formal talks and ceremonies to include cultural and historical engagements. Stops at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art and the National Archives, as stated in White House's release, will highlight the depth of China-US cultural ties and the history of the bilateral relationship.

These elements offer a useful reminder that China-US relations are about more than tariffs, technology and strategic competition. They encompass decades of commercial, cultural, educational and people-to-people connections that have created interests in stability on both sides.

Yet, the relationship has entered a period in which competition is likely to remain a defining feature. The more important question is whether China and the United States can establish a framework that keeps competition manageable and prevents it from repeatedly spilling into confrontation.

For that, each side needs to understand the interests that shape the other's choices.

Recognizing core interests

Every country has concerns it regards as fundamental to its sovereignty, security and development. This makes restraint, clarity and continued communication especially important.

For China, sovereignty and territorial integrity, including the Taiwan question, are core issues. Its pursuit of technological and economic development is also closely connected to its goal of improving living standards and maintaining long-term national development. The United States, meanwhile, has legitimate concerns of its own, including industrial capacity, employment, supply-chain resilience, technological competitiveness and the economic security of its communities.

There are also signs that both sides recognize the need for a more stable framework. Following their meeting in Beijing in May, both sides agreed on a new vision of building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability. "Constructive strategic stability" means positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay, healthy stability with competition within proper limits, constant stability with manageable differences, and lasting stability with expectable peace. Such a formulation points toward a relationship in which competition is accepted as a reality, but prevented from becoming a source of perpetual instability.

Recognizing these concerns does not require either side to accept the other's positions. It does, however, require an understanding that durable relations between major powers cannot be built by treating the other side's fundamental interests as irrelevant.

This matters because measures designed to protect national interests can prompt countermeasures from the other side. Tariffs, export restrictions, investment controls and technology barriers may each be justified in terms of economic or national security priorities, but they can also create uncertainty, deepen mistrust and make subsequent compromise more difficult.

Building guardrails

For businesses, investors and workers, predictability may ultimately matter as much as the precise terms of any individual agreement.

The current trade dialogue therefore offers an opportunity to move beyond a cycle of temporary accommodations. The more durable objective should be mechanisms that allow disagreements to be addressed before they become crises – regular channels for consultation on trade, investment, technology and supply chains, complemented by clear communication at the political and diplomatic levels.

In other words, the goal should not be to eliminate competition, but to put guardrails around it.

This is particularly relevant to artificial intelligence (AI), one of the most consequential new frontiers of China-US competition. Both countries have strong incentives to lead in advanced AI and computing, but also a shared interest in preventing technological competition from creating risks neither can control.

That principle is already evident in recent exchanges. During consultations on economic and trade issues held in New York last weekend, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also held dialogues on AI-related issues. Such communication could improve transparency between the two countries, demonstrating that competition and cooperation need not be mutually exclusive.

Finding areas of cooperation

The same principle can apply beyond the bilateral relationship. Global economic stability, energy security, supply-chain resilience and regional crises can create areas where the interests of China and the United States overlap.

The Middle East is one such example. Instability affecting energy supplies and major shipping routes carries consequences for both countries and the wider world. Cooperation does not require agreement on every aspect of regional policy. It can begin with narrower objectives where interests coincide, such as supporting dialogue, preventing escalation and protecting the functioning of global commerce.

People-to-people ties offer another avenue. The cultural and historical elements of the current state visit underline the value of keeping channels between societies open. Students, researchers, businesses and cultural institutions can provide connections that remain important even when official relations are under strain. Expanding such exchanges can help ensure that a relationship between governments does not become disconnected from the people it ultimately serves.

Ultimately, the test of the Xi-Trump meeting will extend beyond announcing any individual trade or economic agreement. Immediate arrangements matter, but a more consequential outcome would be progress toward a durable mechanism for managing strategic competition.

Head-of-state diplomacy can provide the political direction for such an effort. But presidential meetings alone cannot resolve every difference. Stability also requires sustained work by diplomats, economic officials, businesses, scientists, and other institutions between summits.

Competition does not have to become confrontation. The challenge is to build enough confidence and communication for both sides to defend their legitimate interests while recognizing the other's. That means listening carefully, avoiding unnecessary escalation, maintaining regular channels of dialogue and finding practical areas where cooperation can deliver benefits to both societies.

The Xi-Trump meeting in Washington therefore represents more than a ceremonial milestone. It is an opportunity to test whether two major powers with profound differences can build a more predictable relationship – one in which disagreement is managed through dialogue, legitimate core interests are respected, competition has guardrails and cooperation remains possible wherever common interests exist.

That would not require China and the United States to see the world in the same way. It would require them to recognize that a stable relationship between them is itself an important contribution to the stability and prosperity of the wider world.

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