For US and China, enmity abides

US President Donald Trump might tout his “truly great friendship” with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), boasting after their summit last month that the two countries “have never gotten along better,” but beneath the smiles in Washington, the reality remains stark: “strategic stability” is an illusion, while more tit-for-tat military buildup should be expected.

Neither Washington nor Beijing has any intention of easing its security posture in East and Southeast Asia.

This hard truth dims any realistic prospect for a managed rivalry, regardless of upcoming high-level dialogue on trade, artificial intelligence or even the Iran war.

Consider the grim daily routine in the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to dispatch about eight military aircraft and 10 naval vessels a day around Taiwan.

This is “gray zone” pressure designed to force reunification without a direct military attack. Yet, during Xi’s three-day visit, Trump refused to yield to the Chinese leader’s ultimate red line, declining to explicitly voice “opposition” to Taiwanese independence.

While the US president has paused a US$14 billion arms sale to Taipei, after the midterm elections, he might face a Congress even more resolute to arm Taiwan against Beijing’s daily coercion.

The friction is not isolated to Taiwan. On Sept. 24, Chinese navy and coast guard vessels harassed a Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙), a sandbank in the South China Sea that is occupied by a Philippine military garrison.

Manila, a treaty ally of the US, disputes the illegal Chinese claims to almost 90 percent of this vast stretch of water.

Washington’s response to Chinese operations in the area has been quietly stepped up: the US Marine Corps practiced fielding an air defense radar system in the Philippines to defend the country’s northern province, a mere 100km from southern Taiwan.

Meanwhile, the US Army is planning to station part of its next-generation Multi-Domain Task Force units in South Korea to ensure US access to the Taiwan Strait and the China seas.

In 2017, Washington deployed a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense air and missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula amid vehement Chinese protests.

As allied naval transits continue to assert that the Taiwan Strait remains an international waterway, the burden of containment is shifting. Allied partners such as Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are increasingly compensating for decreases in publicly announced US passages.

This could not happen without coordination with Washington and is a direct result of the Trump administration’s persistent demands for burden-sharing.

The real danger lies in a deeper, technological race.

A Chinese military expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to legal jeopardy in China under the CCP’s new national security laws, said that the battlefields of Ukraine and Iran have proven that the modern era belongs to drones, stealth cruise missiles and advanced ballistic rockets, saying that most large US and Chinese weapons and equipment are worthless, and that the key point is which superpower abandons large-scale arms and systems, devises a new national defense strategy and accelerates the implementation of a new military revolution.

This technological arms contest would paralyze any meaningful bilateral dialogue on AI. While Chinese observers point to upcoming meetings at the APEC summit in Shenzhen and the G20 in Miami as opportunities to stabilize relations, the underlying structural tension tells a different story.

The divergence was laid bare in the post-summit readouts. The White House said that Trump advocated for trilateral arms control negotiations, to include Russia and China.

The Chinese government, by contrast, publicized a consensus on eight outcomes with no mention whatsoever of arms control.

Xi can spin the mantra of “constructive strategic stability,” but his military maneuvers telegraph expansion. The containment-versus-expansion dynamic is here to stay, and Washington must prepare for the long game.

Emanuele Scimia is a journalist and analyst covering foreign affairs and defense issues.