"It provides China with an opportunity to frame itself as a source of prosperity and stability—in contrast to the United States," says Council Distinguished Nonresident Fellow Evan Medeiros.
"The United States needs China to some extent more than China needs us," Council Marshall M. Bouton Senior Fellow for Asia Studies Raymond Kuo tells WGN's The Point.
The Beijing meeting gives the United States an opportunity to push back on a Chinese narrative that worsens the bargaining positions of both Washington and Taipei.
"Beijing is not looking for an opportunity or an excuse to attack Taiwan. On the contrary, it is still looking to Washington and Tokyo for reasons not to do so," Council Senior Nonresident Fellow Paul Heer writes for The National Interest.
"The sort of immediate and urgent crisis is Iran, and it's not the nuclear program, it's the strait," Council President and CEO Leslie Vinjamuri tells Bloomberg. "He will be seeking to see whether China will do anything to help unlock that."
With Washington prioritizing deal-making over competition, Beijing’s confidence is growing—and the risk of miscalculation is rising. Could China use America’s time-out from strategic competition to surpass it economically, technologically, and geopolitically?
The Trump administration’s recently published strategic documents further the US’ drift away from its original meaning of the “one China” policy, Council Nonresident Senior Fellow Paul Heer writes.
