A choreographed detente: Reading the Trump-Xi summit

THE two-day summit that ended in Beijing on Friday (May 15) was the first state visit by a sitting American president to China in nearly a decade.

On the surface, it produced exactly what both leaders needed it to: handshakes at the Great Hall of the People, a stroll at the Temple of Heaven, a state banquet and a joint commitment to build what the Chinese readout called a “constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability”.

Beneath the choreography, however, the summit was less a turning point than a managed pause, a continuation of the detente reached at Busan in October 2025, dressed up for the cameras and stretched thin across three issues where the two governments still want very different things.