Danny Haiphong, Chronicles of Haiphong.
Washington’s commitment to aggression and empire remains ironclad beneath the optics and spectacle.
Most mainstream observers of the Xi-Trump Summit focused entirely on deliverable outcomes. Would the summit be a step toward improved US-China trade ties? Would it produce a breakthrough between the US and China on issues such as tariffs, high-technology, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)? These questions are reasonable ones to ask given that the US and China are the two biggest economies in the world. However, they miss the biggest lesson of all from Xi and Trump’s exchange.
The biggest take away from the summit is that it is now impossible to ignore what Xi Jinping told Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of their summit in Moscow in 2023. Xi told Putin: Right now there are changes – the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years – and we are the ones driving these changes together.”
In other words, China is the motive force behind what Xi often refers to as “changes unseen in a century.” What these changes really represent is a fundamental shift in the global balance of power. China is not just on the rise, it is the economic and geopolitical pillar of the changing world order. Mainstream US media panicked over Trump giving Xi the “red carpet treatment” in large part because it was a symbol of what many elites in Washington view as their biggest nightmare: a strong China and a weak United States.
The deep anxieties pouring out of the sweat glands of US hegemony’s biggest champions are rooted in a stark reality. China’s economic and political system has arguably become the most important in the world. China is the world’s leading manufacturer and this is now true for the most innovative sectors of development. China accounts for nearly half of the world’s installed capacity for solar and wind power and its rapid production of renewable energy has slashed prices by 80 percent globally. China is the undisputed world leader in most areas of high-tech development from 5G & 6G connectivity, high-speed rail development, electric vehicles and robotics. It is the largest trading partner to 120 countries, or nearly two-thirds of the world.
China’s achievements are in large part a byproduct of stability. On the other side of the US-China relationship, stability is in short supply. The Trump administration came into the summit with China’s top officials under enormous political and economic pressure. Trump’s approval rating has sunk to an all-time low of thirty-two percent in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll. Diesel energy prices have dramatically increased due to the shock of Iran & Yemen’s heroic resistance, leading to a steep rise in the cost of living across the US.
Trump remarked during his speech at the UN General Assembly that “while others have spoken of peace, I have made peace.” However, US hegemony came into the Xi-Trump summit in a state of chaos. War with Iran has led to major setbacks across multiple domains. The US military, despite a trillion dollar budget, is facing a critical shortage in munitions. US bases have suffered enormous damage. World energy markets have lost at least 500 million barrels of oil.
This level of instability wasn’t part of the US’s plan. Early reports indicated the Trump administration hoped to use talks with President Xi Jinping to press China on issues of economic and political concern. The goal was to leverage a weakened Iran and a growing US economy against China to extract concessions. Mounting crises and declining global prestige ultimately rendered this an impossibility.
Can the simultaneous rise of China and an increasingly unstable United States create an opportunity to ease tensions for the betterment of the world? This remains a difficult question to answer. China has long held firm to its position that the US and China should be partners, not rivals. While Trump’s meeting with Xi in such short order could be interpreted with optimism, the US’s track record on easing tensions is far from impressive.
Trump has boasted about ending seven to eight conflicts, but facts tell a different story. The U.S. has failed to bring any resolution to the Ukraine war despite President Trump’s promise to end the war within days after his inauguration. In the case of Iran, diplomacy itself has been utilized multiple times by the U.S. administration as a spring board for military action. The U.S. war on Iran is now headed into its eighth month with little momentum toward a diplomatic settlement. It is therefore difficult for China, and the rest of the world for that matter, to trust U.S. attempts at “diplomacy” on its face.
However, the path toward escalation is rife with consequences for the unstable US empire. A fractured relationship with China has already caused the US empire great damage on many domains. U.S. aggression in the Middle East and its trade war policies have eaten into the revenue of U.S. corporations and farmers, hurt the economy, and rendered the U.S. political system less trustworthy on the domestic and international stage. While China benefits from its bilateral ties with the U.S., it has developed a globalized yet self-reliant economy whose growth cannot be credited to one country alone. Rather, China’s advances in high-technology, manufacturing, and economic infrastructure are viewed in China as the outcome of the efforts of the Chinese people in cooperation with more than 200 countries.
To paraphrase Chinese President Xi Jinping, the U.S. & China make up the most important bilateral relationship in the world. What happens in this relationship shapes every aspect of economic, political, and military development in the world. The world benefits mightily when the leaders of the two biggest economies and arguably the most influential countries sit down together to resolve issues of common concern. High-level state visits inject positive momentum and stability toward this end. The Trump-Xi Summit thus offers a potential model for what progress in the U.S.-China relationship could look like.
For progress to truly take shape in a material sense, however, will take more than red-carpets and B-1 bomber flyovers provided as a gesture of good will by the Trump administration. It will take real effort on all sides and a fundamental shift in priorities particularly from the United States. A trade “truce” keeps the status quo stable, but the issues between the U.S. and China run far deeper than a trade dispute. The myriad of differences between the two countries ultimately encompass the question of what kind of world we as humans will live for the rest of the 21st century and beyond. In the age of nuclear weapons, escalation and conflict has the potential to threaten the existence of human life itself.
This makes the question of war or peace between China and the U.S. perhaps the most important of all. Sanctions, tariffs, military encirclement, and political interference foster not only harm to the people and planet, but they foster distrust as well. For the walls between China & the U.S. to fully come down, the Trump-Xi summit must be followed by concrete action that makes good on the commitments inherent to normal diplomatic and economic ties between two nations.
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.