Xi-Trump drink from the holy Grail of Strategic Engagement

The Calm Before the Storm

- DR BHAVNA SINGH

Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.

(REUTERS)

When the US President visited Beijing on 14-15 May 2026, Xi Jinping deployed his best men to the frontlines and flung open the gates of the Temple of Heaven alongside a 21-gun salute on Tian’anmen Square, welcoming the ‘disruptor’ turned ‘risk-manager’ with imperial-style hospitality at Zhongnanhai.

The visit appeared to give birth to a new ‘constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability’ grounded in the steady, sound, and sustainable development of Sino-US relations. But anxiety and restlessness gripped spectators worldwide, who watched with scepticism for statements on Taiwan, Ukraine, and Hormuz, craving a Mao-Nixon style communiqué with less focus on mere optics regarding trade, tariffs, and technology. But no such historic reset was forthcoming. In fact, China and the US achieved very little except for a renewed branding of their relationship, with the Chinese-speaking world viewing it as 送终 (song zhong, symbolically meaning a close/dud). The aftermath, though less dramatic, set the stage for a transition from an interregnum based on ‘transactional diplomacy’ - against the backdrop of strategic competition under Trump - to a world order deeply entrenched in realpolitik considerations of ‘flattening the edges’, amidst the push and pull from techno-oligarchies.

Trump travelled with more than 20 dignitaries, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Larry Fink of BlackRock, and executives from Meta, Visa, JPMorgan, Boeing, and Cargill, of whom two were women. The atmosphere reeked of technological jealousy and a fierce one-upmanship over whose crown was bigger than the other's.