Mutual Recognition between two powers?
Xi Jinping’s trip to the United States has just begun, but the first words the Chinese president spoke already offer an “interesting” indication of the tone Beijing wants to set for this visit. Upon his arrival, Xi stated that China and the United States should be “partners, not rivals,” and that China’s rejuvenation and the American project of power could advance together. Beijing also speaks of a relationship of “strategic stability,” based on cooperation, measured competition, and manageable differences.
Of course, caution is advised. An arrival speech is also a diplomatic exercise. But the words chosen are not neutral. They may reveal a deeper shift: China is no longer simply asking Washington to accept its rise. It seems to be proposing that both powers recognize that neither can weaken the other in a lasting way without weakening itself.
The first hypothesis, then, is one of more explicit mutual recognition.
For years, the Sino-American relationship was often conceived as a struggle for supremacy. Washington wanted to preserve the order it had largely structured after 1945. Beijing wanted to gain more space within this order, then gradually more capacity to change its rules. Today, the language appears different. Xi is not saying that China must replace the United States. He is essentially saying that Chinese power and American power can exist simultaneously.
This does not create an alliance. It does not eliminate Taiwan, commercial tensions, technological warfare, or the military competition in the Indo-Pacific. But it could mark the beginning of a relationship less based on the question “who will dominate?” and more on another: “how can two major powers coexist without turning every disagreement into a crisis?”
The second hypothesis is an organized rivalry.
The United States and China know that total decoupling is extremely difficult. Trade remains important, technological chains remain partially intertwined, and even financial markets maintain many links. At the same time, strategic competition has intensified: semiconductors, artificial intelligence, rare earths, military industry, and sensitive technologies. Economic and technological relations thus remain both a field of competition and a factor of interdependence.
The summit could therefore seek not to eliminate this rivalry, but to limit it. Beijing speaks of moderate competition and manageable differences. This formula is essential. It means that competition can be accepted, as long as it does not lead to direct confrontation.
The third hypothesis is more pragmatic: both countries need stability today.
Washington wants to avoid a new major crisis emerging in Asia while several international issues already demand its attention. Beijing, for its part, has an interest in protecting its economic environment, its exports, and its trade with the United States. A reduction in tensions can therefore serve both capitals’ interests without necessarily signaling a true strategic rapprochement.
In this scenario, Xi’s trip would not yet be a “renewal,” but rather an organized truce. Each side keeps its red lines. Each pursues its own strategy. But each also understands that permanent confrontation is too costly.
Taiwan, of course, remains. This issue will allow us to measure the limits of the new language. Beijing continues to place the question at the center of the relationship, and Xi should seek to reduce American arms sales to Taipei. Washington maintains its support for Taiwan’s defense capability. On the eve of the summit, China again warned Washington to act with “extreme caution” regarding arms sales.
If the Sino-American relationship truly enters a phase of strategic stability, it must show it can absorb this disagreement without provoking a new escalation.
We must also look at tangible results: trade, technologies, rare earths, artificial intelligence, and military channels and crisis management. A change in vocabulary is not enough to create a new balance.
But the symbol deserves attention.
When Xi asserts that China and the United States can “help each other succeed,” he proposes a vision different from a logic of total confrontation. He suggests that one’s success does not necessarily require the other’s failure.
This may be where the real importance of this trip lies.
We may be witnessing not a reconciliation between Washington and Beijing, but something more realistic: the gradual construction of the rules for coexistence between two great powers that know they will remain competitors.
The word “renewal” is therefore probably premature. The term “stabilization” seems more appropriate today.
But if this visit confirms that the two capitals are gradually accepting the idea that their rivalry must be organized rather than definitively won, then an important change could be beginning.
No, not the end of Sino-American competition.
But its transformation into a new relationship: a mutual recognition of power, framed by “strategic coexistence”.
