Busan truce and China's new order

The Busan summit signified a tactical truce rather than a structural reconciliation. Professor Jin Canrong captured this dynamic aptly: 'The more likely path is this-talk a bit, delay a bit; talk again, delay again. So, don't expect some grand bargain ... '

- 

The October 2025 summit in Busan between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, their first in six years, took place against a backdrop of renewed tensions and escalating tariff disputes.

From the perspective of Chinese analysts and state-affiliated commentators, the encounter represented more than a transitory easing of bilateral frictions; it signified a structural recognition of China's emergence as a global power on par with the United States, despite US Treasury Secretary Bessent's characterization of China as an "unreliable partner" in remarks delivered shortly after the Trump-Xi meeting.

MEETING OF THE EQUALS

Official media and policy journals such as Qiushi and the People's Daily framed the Busan meeting as an encounter between two major powers jointly steering the global order toward stability. They stressed a dual posture-"Fight if necessary-China will stand firm(打,奉陪到底);talk if possible-the door is always open(谈,大门敞开)"-and reaffirmed that China "has the confidence and the capability(有信心也有能力)to meet all kinds of risks and challenges (应对各种风险挑战).” Xi's remarks that "China and the United States should be partners, not rivals" and that "dialogue is better than confrontation" were widely cited across state and semiofficial outlets, including the Observer Network.

Trump's own rhetoric, most notably his widely-discussed tweet before departure characterizing the summit as a "G2 meeting", was interpreted by Chinese commentators as a symbolic acknowledgment of parity between China and the United States. As Professor Jin Canrong of Renmin University observed, "In a sense, Trump has acknowledged that China and the United States are great powers of equal standing." Nevertheless, Beijing has consistently rejected the "G2" formulation, maintaining instead that US efforts to contain China are bound to fail and that global stability depends on constructive coordination between the two powers.