Xi’s Washington Visit Showed Why the U.S.–China Rivalry Has to Be Negotiated
Updated: Oct 1
Xi Jinping’s September visit to Washington showed how much the U.S.–China relationship has changed. The meeting produced no grand settlement, but the symbolism mattered less than the balance underneath it: Washington and Beijing are competing aggressively while both possess enough economic leverage to make uncontrolled escalation costly.
The summit managed rivalry rather than ending it
The two governments extended their tariff truce into January 2027 and later agreed to pursue limited tariff reductions on selected goods. Core disputes over technology, Taiwan, industrial policy and strategic supply chains remained unresolved.
China arrived with industrial leverage of its own
The old model of U.S.–China pressure assumed Washington controlled the key chokepoints. That is no longer entirely true. China’s position in rare-earth refining, manufacturing and supply chains gives Beijing tools that can raise costs for U.S. industry, just as American export controls can constrain Chinese access to advanced components.
Reuters described the summit as a stalemate with limited substantive progress. That description captures the material balance better than the pageantry: neither side achieved a decisive breakthrough, and both continued bargaining from positions of significant power.
Interdependence is now part of deterrence
Trade and technology ties are often described as vulnerabilities. They are also constraints on escalation. A government deciding whether to intensify sanctions or export controls has to consider the damage retaliation could inflict on its own companies, consumers and supply chains.
The meeting reflected a more multipolar balance
A Marxist reading focuses on productive power. China’s influence at the negotiating table rests less on diplomatic rhetoric than on manufacturing capacity, technology, trade relationships and control over strategic inputs. Those material assets make it harder for Washington to dictate terms unilaterally.
The summit did not resolve the rivalry. It demonstrated why the rivalry increasingly has to be negotiated. The U.S. remains enormously powerful, but China is no longer an economy that can be disciplined from outside without imposing substantial costs on the disciplinarian as well.
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