Beijing Uses Stability to Constrain U.S. Policy

Beijing wants a Washington that competes less, within limits that Beijing defines, for long enough that the balance keeps shifting its way. General Secretary Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump during their September 2026 summit reinforced a diplomatic framework of “constructive strategic stability” they had introduced in May 2026. However, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) already treats the framework as a commitment to non-interference in its core interests. The stability is one-sided as it limits Washington’s freedom of action in the bilateral relationship while the PRC’s is free to pursue its objectives. The PRC pays in reversible quantities and asks Washington for pledges that are difficult to undo. The PRC does not deny that it competes with the United States, but it refuses to let competition define the relationship. Outwardly, the PRC frames U.S. competitive measures as breaches of shared consensus. Domestically, the relationship remains defined as a contest, struggle, and “strategic stalemate.”

During General Secretary Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States in September 2026, he and U.S. president Donald Trump reinforced a framework of “constructive strategic stability” (The White House; Ministry of Foreign Affairs [MFA], September 25). Beijing wants to define the terms of this stability to constrain U.S. policy by extracting a U.S. commitment to abstain from interference in its core interests. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration accepts that framing as binding or treats it as a mere description of the current situation (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 23).

PRC officials tell Americans the relationship has stabilized to lull them into complacency, while warning their own people that the struggle must continue (Xinhua, October 22). At the White House, Xi described ties as “a race of catching up with one another, not a wrestle” (你追我赶的赛跑，而不是你输我赢的角斗); a phrase that Chinese ambassador to the United States Xie Feng (谢锋) later reiterated (MFA, September 24; PRC Embassy in the United States, October 2).

The Trump administration had already largely dropped the competition framing from its own official descriptions of the relationship. Its 2025 National Security Strategy avoided the terms “great power competition” and “strategic competitor” to describe the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Instead, the document pledges to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China, prioritizing reciprocity and fairness” (The White House, December 2025). The White House used the phrase “constructive strategic stability” in its May 17 fact sheet and repeated it on September 25, adding “respect,” granting Xi what he needs most as the core leader of a regime looking to burnish its legitimacy (The White House, May 17, September 25; The Diplomat, September 23).

Beijing Defines Relations to Limit U.S. Action

Beijing is using its growing power to define the U.S.–PRC relationship for the first time. Chen Manyao (陈曼瑶) of Renmin University’s Chongyang Institute noted that past positionings “were mostly proposed first by the United States, with China responding” (多由美方先提，中方予以回应) (Chongyang Institute, May 21). Similarly, commentator Zhang Sinan (张思南) quoted political scientist E. E. Schattschneider, saying “the definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power” (对选项的定义，是权力的最高工具) (Zhi News, May 16). Marxist studies researcher Wang Peng (王鹏) characterized the Chinese initiative as one in which “you add the qualifier, and I supply the definition” (你加定语，我给定义) (The Paper, September 28).

The PRC’s ability to more proactively define the relationship and set the agenda rests on three factors. First is its successful exercise of leverage over the United States through its control over the rare earths supply chain; second is Trump’s interest in making deals; and third is a desire to capitalize on current conditions and lock in its preferred framing before the political weather in the United States changes. While both sides advocate for a relationship that is strategic, stable, constructive, and reciprocal, the Chinese side defines each of these terms in ways that do not necessarily align with U.S. understandings.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses the term strategic (战略) to mean overall and long-term, and its counterpart is tactical (战术) (Xinhua, January 11, 2022). For example, Fudan University’s Wu Xinbo (吴心伯) noted that the October 2025 Trump–Xi summit in Busan produced only an unsustainable and temporary “tactical stability” (战术性稳定), or truce. Strategic stability, by contrast, needs “major consensus on important issues” (在重要问题上形成重大共识) and a horizon of three years or more, a point Ambassador Xie reiterated in a signed article (Global Times, May 18; People’s Daily, September 23).

“Strategic stability” therefore operates at the same level as strategic competition, replacing it as the primary characterization of the relationship. Originally, the term emerged out of the discourse surrounding nuclear arms control and was used by the United States to describe its relations with a peer competitor, the Soviet Union. In this context, “strategic” implies peer status, which Washington has long refused to grant Beijing. “Stability,” meanwhile, is understood differently today than during the Cold War. While superpower relations then rested on mutually assured destruction and, in Wu’s words, was “negative and non-constructive” (消极的、非建设性的), relations today are defined instead much more positively as “constructive” (Global Times, May 18).

The historical basis of the phrase “constructive strategic stability” underscores the evolution of bilateral ties. It recycles two words from the 1997 landmark summit between then PRC leader Jiang Zemin (江泽民) and U.S. president Bill Clinton, during which the two leaders agreed to build a “constructive strategic partnership” (建设性战略伙伴关系). In Chinese, both formulations use “relationship” (关系), but the new version replaces “partner” (伙伴) with “stability” (稳定), signaling reduced ambitions and tacitly acknowledging rivalry is structural (China Brief, June 5).

Defining the relationship as “constructive” and “reciprocal” is meant to limit U.S. statecraft. Foreign Minister Wang Yi (王毅) in September said reciprocity is “sovereign equality” (主权平等), with “no distinction between higher and lower” (没有高低之分), and fairness is “not seeking unilateral absolute advantage” (不追求单方面的绝对优势) (MFA, September 26). Under this view, U.S. export controls, allied coordination, and investment screening are “not constructive” and constitute unilateral breaches of agreed-upon “fairness.” Beijing can now argue that persistent competitive actions violate the two countries’ mutual understanding, pressuring Washington to make concessions; and given that Wang’s definition of reciprocity entails respecting each other’s territorial claims, Beijing will likely use this to seek reduced U.S. support for Taiwan (MFA, September 26).

Beijing Believes ‘Struggle’ Produced a Stalemate

Beijing acknowledges competition with the United States, but for domestic audiences frames it as concurrent struggle and stalemate. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) think tank China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), particularly under its former president Yuan Peng (袁鹏), has described competition as “a fairly long historical process” (相当长的历史过程) in which “periodic easing or tension will be the norm” (阶段性的缓和或紧张会是一种常态), and where “neither side can swallow the other” (谁也吃不掉谁) (Guangming Daily, December 27, 2019; China News Service, October 21, 2021; CICIR, November 6, 2021). Yuan is reportedly now a vice-minister of state security under the name Yuan Yikun (袁亦鲲), which would lend direct MSS institutional weight to the perspective (Lianhe Zaobao, February 22, 2023).

Chen Wenxin (陈文鑫) of CICIR’s Institute of American Studies more recently put forward the idea that the U.S.–PRC contest had by December 2025 entered a long and “comprehensive” stalemate (全面相持) (CICIR, December 31, 2025). Chen holds that the term is simply an application of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) doctrine of protracted war, under which counter-offensive follows stalemate (Chinese Social Sciences Net, August 18, 2023). A CICIR report released hours before Trump arrived in Beijing in May 2026 repeated the “comprehensive stalemate framing” (CICIR, May 13).

For years, Xi has held that the PRC and the United States are in a period of strategic stalemate and told Chinese officials to prepare for a counter-offensive. “It is unrealistic to try to change the other side” (想改变对方是不切实际的), the General Secretary has observed, warning that “the various struggles we face are not short-term but long-term” (我们面临的各种斗争不是短期的而是长期的) (Xinhua, September 3, 2019; MFA, November 16, 2023). He has directly stated that “many of the problems we face … must be understood from the perspective of protracted war” (我们遇到的很多问题……必须从持久战的角度加以认识) (Xinhua, July 30, 2020). And in a January 2026 speech that Qiushi published just two weeks before Trump’s May visit, Xi told cadres to “build up a solid reserve of strategies and measures … and strive to turn unfavorable factors into favorable conditions for defeating the enemy” (扎实储备谋略举措 … 努力把不利因素转化为克敌制胜的有利条件)(Qiushi, April 30).

Scholars such as Renmin University’s Jin Canrong (金灿荣) argue that the PRC has “won equality through strength” (用实力赢得了平等), laying a foundation for constructive strategic stability (Guancha, May 15). The People’s Daily argues that the PRC’s readiness to fight the tariff war is what made a return to talks possible (People’s Daily, May 13). Chinese scholars disagree on how long the stalemate will last, however, and what could mark the end of it (Wenhui Daily, November 2021; China Review News, September 26).

The pause buys time to close gaps that Xi himself has conceded still remain, particularly in technology (Qiushi, May 31). For example, the PRC allocates roughly seven percent of research spending to basic research, compared with leading science powers at 15–20 percent (Qiushi, September 15). While some Western estimates suggest the PRC’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities lag those of the United States by 6.5 months, broader AI developments and critical subsectors may be further behind (China Brief, October 14; Institute for Progress, October 19).

Beijing Presses U.S. on Taiwan and Trade

The CCP’s definitions of each aspect of the relationship framework are intended to give Beijing a procedural lever to apply pressure over core issues. Beijing repeatedly insists that others respect its “four red lines” (四条红线), which Ambassador Xie recently adumbrated as including “Taiwan, democracy and human rights, [the PRC’s development] path and [political] system, and its right to development (台湾、民主人权、道路制度、发展权利) (PRC Embassy in the United States, May 14, October 2).

Xi warns that mishandling the critical Taiwan issue could risk conflict, and both he and Wang Yi have applied pressure on Washington to actively oppose Taiwan independence rather than merely not endorsing it (MFA, May 14, May 15). Within days of the summit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ spokesman employed the “stability” lever to bolster the PRC’s position on the “Taiwan issue,” stating that the U.S. side should “implement the important consensus reached at the China–U.S. leaders’ meeting” (落实中美元首会晤重要共识) (MFA, October 6).

Party-state commentators also insist Taiwan must not be treated as a “bargaining chip” (交易筹码) in bilateral ties, and officials call on Washington to abide by the August 17, 1982, U.S.–China Communiqué governing arms sales to Taipei (Global Times, May 17; Ministry of National Defense [MND], May 28). Ambassador Xie also claimed that the two presidents “agreed to jointly safeguard the victorious outcomes” of the Second World War (同意携手捍卫二战胜利成果), among which Beijing includes Taiwan’s “return” (回归) to China (MFA, September 17, 2025). The White House fact sheet records no such pledge (The White House, September 25; Newsweek, October 1).

The last of Beijing’s “four red lines” invokes a rights-based framing to curtail what it sees as hostile economic statecraft. It views U.S. tariffs, sanctions, and export controls as impeding the Chinese people’s right to development, which officials have long avowed “cannot be taken away” (不可剥夺) (MFA, November 17, 2024). The stability frame limits foreign economic pressure by calling for a cap on measures that the United States and other countries consider necessary defenses against aggressive PRC mercantilism (Ministry of Commerce [MOFCOM], May 20).

The Party is careful to leverage Trump’s perceived good relationship with Xi to promote predictability in bilateral relations, exculpating the U.S. president by warning that “some people” (某些人) in their statements on Taiwan are “complying in form while defying in substance” (阳奉阴违) (Taiwan Affairs Office [TAO], July 2; MFA, September 26). This rhetorically insulates Trump from broader U.S. policy moves that Beijing disagrees with, leaving open pathways for Trump to make its desired concessions.

One-Sided Stability

Although Xi in May 2026 tied the stability positioning to action, his regime has so far done little to translate this commitment into significant policy shifts (MFA, May 14). It has implemented limited measures to crack down on fentanyl precursors, made purchases of American coal that only the White House has quantified, and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) air activity around Taiwan roughly halved year-on-year in the first half of 2026, returning to a previous baseline after reaching a historic peak in 2024–2025 (South China Morning Post, July 24; The White House, September 25; MFA, September 26).

Xi’s negotiators have also sought to create an imbalance in the respective actions each side has agreed to. While the PRC has offered compromises on quantities of goods, licenses, or other measures, these measures are all easily reversible and often time-limited. Conversely, the concessions it demands from the U.S. side are far more complex to undo, such as “opposing” Taiwan independence and reconfiguring the U.S. alliance posture. This echoes the Party-state’s portrayal of its restraint as a choice made from geopolitical strength, and U.S. commitment to the framework as “the trustworthiness and sense of responsibility expected of a great power”(大国应有的言而有信与责任担当) (CCTV, August 8). Beijing apparently wants to limit the constraints of “strategic stability” to U.S.–PRC relations, rather than allowing them to restrict the PRC’s actions elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region. This is underscored by the Party’s uncompromising rhetoric, which blames Washington for every perceived risk, while the PRC’s own conduct is always presented as blameless.

Conclusion

Beijing is attempting to convert a tactical pause into a framework that constrains U.S. policy while maintaining PRC freedom of action. The stalemate doctrine treats this détente as a phase, and indeed Chinese political scientist Zheng Yongnian (郑永年) notes its three-year duration as “tailor-made for President Trump” (给特朗普总统量身定制的) (Qianhai Institute for International Affairs, May 15).

The test for the Trump administration is whether it accepts the constructive strategic stability framework as a sincerely-shared vision and interpretation of bilateral relations, or judges it by concrete actions rather than rhetoric alone. For U.S. allies, the critical question is whether “reciprocity” includes how Beijing treats them, too.

https://jamestown.org/beijing-uses-stability-to-constrain-u-s-policy