As I write this, US President Donald Trump is preparing for his visit to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. By the time it reaches my readers, they will already have some idea of what happens during that visit, the surrounding atmosphere, perhaps even some of the substance of what bilateral agreements the two sides choose to make public.
This historic meeting will occur at a moment when the global order has settled into a triangular power structure. The US, with a GDP that has surpassed $32 trillion, is the dominant side. As it withdraws from Europe, it is expanding across the Middle East with the greatest military force known to contemporary history. China, the US’ main competitor, constitutes the second side. It is racing to close the gap, benefiting from its unprecedented economic transformation and technological revolution. Despite China’s superpower status, the only cause that would make it go to war is Taiwan. At this stage, Beijing continues to champion international law, even with regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Although Beijing sides with Russia, it does not support the latter’s annexation of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. Russia is the third side of the triangle. If it lags a considerable distance behind the US and China economically, its nuclear and aerospace capabilities place it squarely within the superpower constellation. Despite its proximity to Beijing, there is a connection to the US through the rather ambiguous relationship between the Russian and American presidents.
At a broader level, the backdrop of the Chinese-US summit is shaped by the new global order, which began to emerge following the waning of the US-led mode of globalisation. China is now positioned at the heart of the emergent order in terms of goods and commodities, supply chains, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Such circumstances suggest that the meeting will focus closely on trade issues, the area where the two countries first clashed during the Trump era. Another item of major concern to Washington might also figure high on the agenda in Beijing. A country with a massive GDP like the US inevitably requires vast quantities, in volume and value, of rare earth minerals, which are abundant in China, as well as Greenland and other regions that have come under Washington’s radar.
While Washington and Beijing can find much common ground in the economic and perhaps even the environmental realm, they are miles apart on the question of how to manage a world increasingly run by advanced technologies on land, at sea, in the air and even in outer space. China, which had continued to rebel against the global order until well after the era of Chairman Mao Zedong, is now one of the most ardent supporters of the World Trade Organisation and other multilateral global organisations created to manage everything from food and the environment to communications. The US under Trump has no taste for such multilateral arrangements and instead prefers carving up the world into spheres of influence. It would take all of the Americas according to the Monroe Doctrine, while Southeast Asia and all its wealth would come under China’s shadow, and Russia might as well reclaim parts of Eastern Europe that once belonged to the Soviet Union.
Despite the weighty agenda that awaits Trump and Xi in Beijing, the entire global order remains vulnerable to the types of stress tests that all previous international orders have undergone. The post-World War I order met its demise in the test of World War II. The post-war order was stress-tested by the Cold War and the decolonisation of the Third World after the Suez Crisis. The US-led globalised order was tested through its Vietnam-like wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Historically, the test has always targeted “concord”, a spirit of mutual accommodation that keeps competition within a framework of peace and sharing. It exposes contradictions that some parties attempt to resolve through direct conflict or proxy wars.
The wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran have exposed the current order to its first major historical tests, which are proving embarrassing for Washington but also awkward for Beijing. Washington entered the war in the Middle East on Israel’s side while Beijing’s economic and energy ties place it on a different footing in the region. Tehran is a pivotal state with extensive economic relations with Beijing, though these do not outweigh Beijing’s ties with Washington. The Chinese leadership, which is now proficient in managing capitalist systems, does not fully understand the Iranian political system.
Perhaps what is most awkward for Trump as he heads off to Beijing is that he is at a loss as to how to proceed in Iran. Should he resume the war after the ceasefire collapse and regional mediation efforts fail? Or might the Chinese use their influence to persuade Iran to lift its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, thereby restoring the free movement of maritime trade between the Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean. Surely it must have occurred to Trump that China has no interest in a nuclear Iran ruled by a jihadist fundamentalist theocracy that sets the region ablaze with missiles. There are many common interests at stake.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 21 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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