Trump-Xi bonhomie can’t paper over tensions

Pursuing cooperation with allies and building indigenous capability should be New Delhi’s priority.

3 min readSep 26, 2026 06:30 AM IST First published on: Sep 26, 2026 at 06:30 AM IST

Little of substance was achieved at the Donald Trump-Xi Jinping summit this week, particularly on the three Ts that have come to define the US-China relationship. On trade, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two countries had agreed to extend the Busan truce, which expires in November, when China’s suspension of its rare-earth export restrictions is also due to end. On technology, Trump said he was content to leave AI “exactly where it is”, while Xi merely stressed the need to maintain human control over it. And on Taiwan, Xi urged Trump to oppose Taiwanese independence, even as the US has held back an arms package for Taiwan worth about $14 billion. The pageantry, however, appears to have been the overarching objective of the meeting. A strategy of managed stability suits both sides for the moment: Trump is bogged down by the war in Iran with the midterm elections around the corner, while Xi is contending with a slowing economy ahead of next year’s Communist Party Congress.

What does stand out from the summit, however, is the red carpet Trump rolled out — literally — for Xi, personally receiving him at Joint Base Andrews for their third meeting in less than a year. Trump referred to their “truly great friendship”, and Xi reciprocated by using the US President’s own catchphrase while stressing the need for closer cooperation: “Achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can go hand in hand.” Such personalisation of the US-China relationship may help the two sides keep tensions temporarily contained and preserve a fragile modus vivendi. The US is heavily reliant on China’s critical minerals, and Beijing wants an open market in the US for its goods. This means that neither country has an incentive to tackle any of the fundamental disputes. But managed stability can also allow unresolved tensions to accumulate, making a future rupture more difficult to contain.

Nowhere are the risks more apparent than in the case of AI. Despite growing calls for an agreement on AI safety, especially amid warnings from leading US AI companies that the pace of AI development needs to slow, neither Washington nor Beijing has much incentive to constrain a technology they see as a source of strategic power. The history of arms control offers little reason to expect either side to make concessions. The worry for other countries, including India, is that an AI dialogue between Washington and Beijing could evolve into a framework in which the two leading powers set the rules for everyone else. Pursuing cooperation with allies and building indigenous capability should be New Delhi’s priority.