Four months after their Beijing meeting, Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have renewed their efforts to stabilize U.S.-China relations. The Washington summit extended the trade truce and advanced arrangements for economic dialogue and managing AI risks. Yet disputes over Taiwan, technology and the wider strategic relationship remain unresolved.
The continuing war in Iran is also testing whether Washington and Beijing can cooperate to contain instability in the Middle East even as they disagree over its causes and resolution. The central question is whether sustained engagement can produce a more durable relationship, and whether the mechanisms emerging from these meetings can withstand the next serious disagreement.
Building on its May symposium, the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy brings together scholars and practitioners to assess what has changed and what remains uncertain. Contributors differ over the significance of the current rapprochement. Some see the beginnings of a more stable coexistence while others question whether diplomatic momentum reflects meaningful convergence or a temporary alignment of interests. These assessments also examine Beijing’s bargaining position, the impact of Washington’s involvement in the Iran war, the benefits and limitations of leader-level diplomacy, and the implications of closer great-power coordination for other countries.
Whether Washington and Beijing can translate their summit commitments into a more enduring basis for managing competition, or whether it represents another interval between crises, remains to be seen.
The summit was high on symbolism and low on substantive progress. There was no mention of human rights, and the pomp clearly demonstrated that China is now a peer power of the United States, and Washington recognizes that. The truce was extended as a sign of American failure to coerce China, and major disputes over Taiwan, tariffs, technology, artificial intelligence, and the broader strategic relationship remained unresolved. At the same time, direct engagement is increasingly understood as necessary to prevent that competition from escalating into a crisis in Asia.
China and the U.S. have realized that they are peer powers, and given the war in Iran and over Ukraine, dialogue is beneficial to a trade war, but it somehow gives the impression that China is on the front foot in this equation and is waiting out the Trump administration to see what comes next.
The Washington summit will be read as a thaw, but its significance is narrower and more interesting than that. What the two governments have built is not cooperation on AI. It is plumbing: a dialogue channel and a threat notification system that presume competition will continue and seek only to keep it from becoming an accident.
That is worth having. Frontier systems now fail in ways neither Washington nor Beijing can fully anticipate, and agentic deployment compresses the time available to interpret the other side’s behaviour. A hotline does not align interests; it buys minutes. In a domain where misread capability is as dangerous as misused capability, minutes matter.
The limits are structural. Chip access, distillation, and control over how advanced AI capabilities diffuse are distributional questions, and no notification protocol resolves those underlying conflicts. Expect the channel to hold on safety incidents and to fray wherever commercial advantage is implicated.
The deeper implication is institutional. With AI executives in the room alongside heads of state, Washington and Beijing are quietly conceding that the operators of these systems are now participants in their governance. That is the real shift the summit records, and the rest of the world, which has neither the models nor the seats, should notice.
The summit between President Trump and President Xi is unlikely to produce anything of substance. Surely the two leaders will discuss key issues of trade, AI, and the war in Iran. Chinese media reports that Xi used the occasion to ask Trump to act “prudently” towards Taiwan.
Despite the lack of substantive outcomes, what the summit shows us is that Trump is far more interested in great power collusion than he is in great power competition. This has been evident from the start of his second term in office. Within months of taking office, Trump signalled that he seeks a wide-ranging settlement with Xi. Early on, anonymous Trump advisers told The New York Times that Trump would like to sit down “man to man” with Xi to hammer out terms governing trade, investment, and nuclear arms.
It is striking that, in the same week that Trump has banned U.S. media from the White House, he welcomed Chinese media to record the pageantry surrounding Xi’s visit: the hundreds of U.S. military personnel on display, a 21-gun salute, a B-2 stealth bomber flyover, and a state dinner stacked with tech billionaires. While diplomatic engagement with great power rivals is necessary, this autocratic adulation undermines democratic interests.
The timely and successful convening of the Washington summit brings positive prospects for China-U.S. relations and the world. Following President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump’s Beijing meeting in May, bilateral ties have enjoyed unusual stability in both strategic and economic areas, which this summit further reinforces. It proves that the White House discarding Cold War mentalities allows China and the United States to overcome disruptions and move toward harmonious coexistence.
Both sides reaffirmed a constructive strategic-stability relationship. Washington once insisted on issue-based cooperation premised on China’s unilateral concessions. Its resistance to overarching cooperative frameworks such as the new model of major-power relationship stemmed chiefly from geopolitical hubris rather than claimed cultural disparities.
China principally seeks confidence in viable bilateral coexistence. It expects Washington to rein in anti-China sentiment and uphold a restrained, consistent China policy. China does not expect drastic U.S. policy adjustments amid unfinished domestic consensus, yet it urges continued U.S. strategic and economic goodwill to sustain improving bilateral dynamics.
Pageantry overshadowed substance during Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington last week. Time for actual policy discussions was limited, but the two sides agreed to extend their “trade truce” for another two months, and spoke tentatively about establishing a dialogue on AI issues. Clearly, the primary purpose of the visit was to sustain the narrative of forward momentum in President Trump’s relationship with Xi, rather than to confront any troublesome bilateral issues in depth. In their public remarks, both leaders spoke about working together to forge a better future for both countries and for the globe.
But advancing that vision in the real world faces several fundamental challenges. At their Beijing summit in May, the two sides embraced the framework of pursuing “constructive strategic stability” in US-China relations. Since then, however, almost nothing has been done to define that goal or to develop a plan for proceeding toward it. Indeed, only Xi explicitly reaffirmed that goal in Washington, whereas many on the US side have tried to retreat from it rhetorically, or have characterized it as a Chinese trap. This underscores the key obstacle to stabilizing US-China relations: both sides are still maneuvering for advantage in what each claims the other has made a zero-sum competition. And both sides think they have the balance of leverage and that time is on their side. That is not a recipe for advancing “constructive strategic stability.”
As expected, the summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump produced few surprises. Both leaders avoided the roughest parts of the US-China relationship, settling instead for atmospherics and symbolism.
The most substantive outcome was announced just before the summit, when the U.S. and China announced they had agreed to extend a truce on their trade wars into January 2027. This does not, however, mark any actual movement in the relationship, and the hoped-for reduction in tariffs has not occurred.
Perhaps most notable is what was not discussed publicly: Taiwan. Although Xi reportedly brought up Taiwan in their private discussions, urging Trump to “oppose Taiwanese independence,” Trump declined to say whether Taiwan had been discussed. In fact, Trump has recently been notably quiet about Taiwan, barely mentioning it at all in his social media posts. The few times Trump has talked about Taiwan directly in the past year, he has been either critical or ambiguous. This might be viewed positively in Beijing, but it is in fact decades-long U.S. policy to be ambiguous about Taiwan and to acknowledge but not support China’s position on the issue. That Trump downplayed Taiwan during the summit will not please the hawks in Washington, but it does continue this 2nd Trump administration’s relative lack of attention to that issue.
Given the lack of substantive movement on trade or tariffs, the pageantry of the summit is perhaps the best outcome that could be hoped for. In short, no surprises, but little progress, either.
As most observers had expected, the summit’s theatrics outstripped its deliverables: Trump and Xi maintained a cordial rapport and agreed to a two-month extension of the Busan trade truce between the United States and China, but they do not appear to have made headway on thorny issues such as cross-Strait tensions, the crisis in the Middle East, and guardrails to manage the progress of artificial intelligence.
Still, there is at least one notable takeaway: Xi is increasingly confident in China’s trajectory vis-à-vis the United States and its ability to define the conceptual basis for bilateral relations. Since he took power, analysts have noted that he aims to be seen as his U.S. counterpart’s geopolitical equal. During his state visit last week, however, the roles were reversed: it was Trump who seemed keen, if not anxious, to impress Xi. That interpersonal dynamic symbolizes a geopolitical one: after last year’s trade standoff, which underscored how easily China can hold major swathes of the U.S. economy at risk, Washington is attempting to restore its real and perceived leverage vis-à-vis Beijing.
Xi—like Trump, importantly—regards China as a near-peer to the United States. On Thursday, he called them “two major countries” and contended that “without our cooperation, it would be hard to solve many of the world’s problems.” He also argued that Beijing’s proposal for “a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability” is “widely welcomed by the people of our two countries and the international community.”
The Trump-Xi summit in Washington, D.C., like the earlier summit in Beijing this year, is unlikely to produce a breakthrough in U.S.-China relations. The fundamental sources of rivalry—structural competition, economic and technological disputes, Taiwan, and competing visions of regional and global order—remain unresolved. The summit should therefore be understood less as an opportunity for a grand bargain than as an exercise in managing, rather than resolving, an increasingly complicated relationship. The immediate focus is likely to be on limited agreements on specific issues, such as a trade-war truce, rare-earth export controls, and agricultural trade, aimed at sustaining the fragile stability that has emerged from the two sides’ recent negotiations.
Yet the summit’s importance should not be measured only by its deliverables. Leadership diplomacy matters because leaders, particularly strong leaders, matter. Structural conditions constrain the choices available to Washington and Beijing, but they do not mechanically determine how those choices are made. The personal chemistry between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, their ability to communicate directly, and their willingness to establish informal understandings can shape how both sides interpret signals, manage disagreements, and respond to crises. This is particularly important when strategic trust is low and formal mechanisms for managing the relationship remain limited. As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, “President Xi Jinping and President Trump are world-class leaders who have interacted over a long period and respect each other; this has become the most valuable strategic asset in China–U.S. relations. Their willingness to continue meeting is significant because sustained leader-level engagement can help contain friction, preserve channels of communication, and provide a mechanism for managing crises in an increasingly competitive relationship.
Repeated leader-level meetings can therefore serve as guardrails for an otherwise highly competitive relationship. They cannot eliminate the underlying sources of rivalry, but they can reduce the risks of misperception, miscalculation, and unintended escalation. Direct communication can also help clarify intentions when signals are ambiguous and create channels for de-escalation when crises occur. If Trump and Xi can maintain regular communication and establish a pattern of direct engagement, this summit—and subsequent meetings—will lie less in whether they produce a dramatic grand bargain than in whether they help keep competition within manageable bounds.
The central challenge for Trump and Xi is therefore not to resolve the U.S.-China rivalry—a goal that remains beyond the reach of a single summit—but to prevent competition from becoming confrontation. In that sense, sustained leader-level diplomacy is not a substitute for addressing the structural sources of rivalry; it is a necessary means of managing them.
Trump rolled out the red carpet and hosted a lavish state dinner for his visitor. He met his Chinese counterpart on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, giving Xi the highest level of hospitality and warmest reception an American president has given to a visiting foreign leader since 1962, when President John F. Kennedy greeted British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at the same airport.
There are different reactions to Trump’s extraordinary welcome to Xi, ranging from endorsing Trump’s renewed engagement with China to attacking his desperation and kowtowing to Beijing. Yet, Trump’s options are limited. When facing serious internal and external challenges such as rising gas prices and a prolonged war with Iran before the November midterm elections, the last thing Trump wants is a rocky relationship with China.
Pageantry aside, what has been achieved from this summit? It was a meeting heavy on pomp and light on substance. However, this summit helps stabilize the bilateral relationship.
The US-China relationship is often framed in Washington as competitive and zero-sum, while China is perceived as a rival, a threat, and even an enemy. Few people talk about cooperation to address bilateral issues and common global challenges. The reality is that the two countries are interdependent, and the relationship is characterized by both competition and cooperation. Managing competition and enhancing cooperation not only serve their own interests but are critical for global peace and development.
The Trump-Xi summit marks a new juncture in U.S.-China relations. This was the first time in eleven years that President Xi Jinping made an official state visit to the United States. Over that period, Washington’s posture toward Beijing shifted from welcoming a peaceful and prosperous China to treating it as a strategic competitor and a revisionist power. Following an unprecedentedly tense trade war last year, the two leaders met in Busan and reached a tactical truce. Then, during President Trump’s state visit to China in May 2026, President Xi announced a new vision for building a “constructive U.S.-China relationship of strategic stability,” featuring “cooperation as the mainstay, moderate competition, manageable differences, and promises of peace.”
In his opening remarks for this state visit, Xi reaffirmed both leaders’ commitment to a constructive relationship of strategic stability and urged both sides to turn vision into action. While the concrete deliverables were underwhelming, with the trade truce extended by only two months, China may still view the summit as a win, for three reasons.
First, it cements a shared vision, one Washington now appears to endorse, of cooperation over competition as the relationship’s defining frame. Second, on the Taiwan issue, the Chinese readout published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that Xi expressed hope that the U.S. would “continue to oppose ‘Taiwan independence’” as a foundation for bilateral relations. This would mark a fundamental shift in the U.S. position, from “not supporting” to “opposing” Taiwan independence, though the shift has not been confirmed by the White House readout. Third, on AI, Xi stressed the importance of dialogue to prevent AI misuse and abuse, a framing that departs from Trump’s emphasis on winning the AI race and his generally laissez-faire approach to AI regulation.
Trump, for his part, also has reason to see the summit as a win. Facing pressure ahead of the midterm elections, he used the pageantry to showcase his diplomatic skill and personal rapport with the leader of another superpower. He also announced potential new agreements that could boost U.S. agricultural exports and secure additional business deals, giving him a chance to demonstrate his “art of the deal” to his base.
Looking ahead, new challenges could strain the relationship before year’s end: tech restrictions from U.S. agencies, the risk of secondary sanctions on China over trade with Tehran, AI-related disputes, and disrupted rare earth flows. Still, the relationship is likely to remain relatively stable, and further agreements, such as trade and investment councils and an AI dialogue mechanism, may emerge when the two leaders meet again in Shenzhen and Miami. Stability, however, should not be mistaken for a state of rest: it is a dynamic equilibrium in which both sides buy time to manage existing choke points even as new ones emerge, restrained from overt confrontation less by trust than by the shared recognition that neither can claim an absolute win.
The Western powers have failed to effectively manage the increasing threat of proliferation in the Middle East. While the international community is concerned with Iran’s nuclear program, Saudi Arabia has moved forward with developing its own nuclear program, and independent studies show that Israel has longed possessed dozens of nuclear warheads. The former is a member of the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), while the latter has refused to sign the international agreement.
On Middle East policy, the Biden campaign had staunchly criticized the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal and it has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier since assuming office in January 2021. However, serious obstacles remain for responsible actors in expanding non-proliferation efforts toward a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
This panel will discuss how Western powers and multilateral institutions, such as the IAEA, can play a more effective role in managing non-proliferation efforts in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Peggy Mason: Canada’s former Ambassador to the UN for Disarmament
– Mark Fitzpatrick: Associate Fellow & Former Executive Director, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
– Ali Vaez: Iran Project Director, International Crisis Group
– Negar Mortazavi: Journalist and Political Analyst, Host of Iran Podcast
– David Albright: Founder and President of the Institute for Science and International Security
Closing (5:45 PM – 6:00 PM ET)
What is the current economic landscape in the Middle East? While global foreign direct investment is expected to fall drastically in the post-COVID era, the World Bank reported a 5% contraction in the economic output of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries in 2020 due to the pandemic. While oil prices are expected to rebound with normalization in demand, political instability, regional and geopolitical tensions, domestic corruption, and a volatile regulatory and legal environment all threaten economic recovery in the Middle East. What is the prospect for economic growth and development in the region post-pandemic, and how could MENA nations promote sustainable growth and regional trade moving forward?
At the same time, Middle Eastern diaspora communities have become financially successful and can help promote trade between North America and the region. In this respect, the diaspora can become vital intermediaries for advancing U.S. and Canada’s business interests abroad. Promoting business diplomacy can both benefit the MENA region and be an effective and positive way to advance engagement and achieve foreign policy goals of the North Atlantic.
This panel will investigate the trade and investment opportunities in the Middle East, discuss how facilitating economic engagement with the region can benefit Canadian and American national interests, and explore relevant policy prescriptions.
Panelists:
– Hon. Sergio Marchi: Canada’s Former Minister of International Trade
– Scott Jolliffe: Chairperson, Canada Arab Business Council
– Esfandyar Batmanghelidj: Founder and Publisher of Bourse & Bazaar
– Nizar Ghanem: Director of Research and Co-founder at Triangle
– Nicki Siamaki: Researcher at Control Risks
The Middle East continues to grapple with violence and instability, particularly in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Fueled by government incompetence and foreign interventions, terrorist insurgencies have imposed severe humanitarian and economic costs on the region. Meanwhile, regional actors have engaged in an unprecedented pursuit of arms accumulation. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have imported billions of both Western and Russian-made weapons and funded militant groups across the region, intending to contain their regional adversaries, particularly Iran. Tehran has also provided sophisticated weaponry to various militia groups across the region to strengthen its geopolitical position against Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel.
On the other hand, with international terrorist networks and intense regional rivalry in the Middle East, it is impractical to discuss peace and security without addressing terrorism and the arms race in the region. This panel will primarily discuss the implications of the ongoing arms race in the region and the role of Western powers and multilateral organizations in facilitating trust-building security arrangements among regional stakeholders to limit the proliferation of arms across the Middle East.
Panelists:
Luciano Zaccara: Assistant Professor, Qatar University
Dania Thafer: Executive Director, Gulf International Forum
Kayhan Barzegar: Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Science and Research Branch of Azad University
Barbara Slavin: Director of Iran Initiative, Atlantic Council
Sanam Shantyaei: Senior Journalist at France24 & host of Middle East Matters
The emerging regional order in West Asia will have wide-ranging implications for global security. The Biden administration has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier, an initiative staunchly opposed by Israel, while also taking a harder line on Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen. Meanwhile, key regional actors, including Qatar, Iraq, and Oman, have engaged in backchannel efforts to bring Iran and Saudi Arabia to the negotiating table. From a broader geopolitical perspective, with the need to secure its energy imports, China is also expected to increase its footprint in the region and influence the mentioned challenges.
In this evolving landscape, Western powers will be compelled to redefine their strategic priorities and adjust their policies with the new realities in the region. In this panel, we will discuss how the West, including the United States and its allies, can utilize multilateral diplomacy with its adversaries to prevent military escalation in the region. Most importantly, the panel will discuss if a multilateral security dialogue in the Persian Gulf region, proposed by some regional actors, can help reduce tensions among regional foes and produce sustainable peace and development for the region.
Panelists:
– Abdullah Baabood: Academic Researcher and Former Director of the Centre for Gulf Studies, Qatar University
– Trita Parsi: Executive Vice-President, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
– Ebtesam Al-Ketbi: President, Emirates Policy Centre
– Jon Allen: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Israel
– Elizabeth Hagedorn: Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor
Military interventions, political and economic instabilities, and civil unrest in the Middle East have led to a global refugee crisis with an increasing wave of refugees and asylum seekers to Europe and Canada. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has, in myriad ways, exacerbated and contributed to the ongoing security threats and destabilization of the region.
While these challenges pose serious risks to Canadian security, Ottawa will also have the opportunity to limit such risks and prevent a spillover effect vis-à-vis effective humanitarian initiatives in the region. In this panel, we will primarily investigate Canada’s Middle East Strategy’s degree of success in providing humanitarian aid to the region. Secondly, the panel will discuss what programs and initiatives Canada can introduce to further build on the renewed strategy. and more specifically, how Canada can utilize its policy instruments to more effectively deal with the increasing influx of refugees from the Middle East.
Panelists:
Erica Di Ruggiero: Director of Centre for Global Health, University of Toronto
Reyhana Patel: Head of Communications & Government Relations, Islamic Relief Canada
Amir Barmaki: Former Head of UN OCHA in Iran
Catherine Gribbin: Senior Legal Advisor for International and Humanitarian Law, Canadian Red Cross
In 2016, Canada launched an ambitious five-year “Middle East Engagement Strategy” (2016-2021), committing to investing CA$3.5 billion over five years to help establish the necessary conditions for security and stability, alleviate human suffering and enable stabilization programs in the region. In the latest development, during the meeting of the Global Coalition against ISIS, Minister of Foreign Affairs Marc Garneau announced more than $43.6 million in Peace and Stabilization Operations Program funding for 11 projects in Syria and Iraq.
With Canada’s Middle East Engagement Strategy expiring this year, it is time to examine and evaluate this massive investment in the Middle East region in the past five years. More importantly, the panel will discuss a principled and strategic roadmap for the future of Canada’s short-term and long-term engagement in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Ferry de Kerckhove: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Egypt
– Dennis Horak: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
– Chris Kilford: Former Canadian Defence Attaché in Turkey, member of the national board of the Canadian International Council (CIC)
– David Dewitt: University Professor Emeritus, York University
While the United States continues to pull back from certain regional conflicts, reflected by the Biden administration’s decision to halt American backing for Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen and the expected withdrawal from Afghanistan, US troops continue to be stationed across the region. Meanwhile, Russia and China have significantly maintained and even expanded their regional activities. On one hand, the Kremlin has maintained its military presence in Syria, and on the other hand, China has signed an unprecedented 25-year strategic agreement with Iran.
As the global power structure continues to shift, it is essential to analyze the future of the US regional presence under the Biden administration, explore the emerging global rivalry with Russia and China, and at last, investigate the implications of such competition for peace and security in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Dmitri Trenin: Director of Carnegie Moscow Center
– Joost R. Hiltermann: Director of MENA Programme, International Crisis Group
– Roxane Farmanfarmaian: Affiliated Lecturer in International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa, University of Cambridge
– Andrew A. Michta: Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at Marshall Center
– Kelley Vlahos: Senior Advisor, Quincy Institute
The security architecture of the Middle East has undergone rapid transformations in an exceptionally short period. Notable developments include the United States gradual withdrawal from the region, rapprochement between Israel and some GCC states through the Abraham Accords and the rise of Chinese and Russian regional engagement.
With these new trends in the Middle East, it is timely to investigate the security implications of the Biden administration’s Middle East policy. In this respect, we will discuss the Biden team’s new approach vis-à-vis Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The panel will also discuss the role of other major powers, including China and Russia in shaping this new security environment in the region, and how the Biden administration will respond to these powers’ increasing regional presence.
Panelists:
– Sanam Vakil: Deputy Director of MENA Programme at Chatham House
– Denise Natali: Acting Director, Institute for National Strategic Studies & Director of the Center for Strategic Research, National Defense University
– Hassan Ahmadian: Professor of the Middle East and North Africa Studies, University of Tehran
– Abdulaziz Sagar: Chairman, Gulf Research Center
– Andrew Parasiliti: President, Al-Monitor
