# Journey to Beijing **Date de l'événement :** 28/05/2026 * Publié le 28/05/2026 ### Date 28/05/2026 ## Chapô **Xi Jinping received Donald Trump and his delegation with all the honors of grand diplomacy. As the Sino-American rivalry polarizes the new international order, this meeting was heavy with stakes: the war in Iran, the Taiwan question, trade balances, technological battles. Did we witness a kind of stabilization of the competition between the two giants? If so, to whose benefit? Zaki Laïdi, research director at Sciences Po and co-author of [_The Hedgers. How The Global South Navigates the Sino-American Competition_](https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/hedgers/440ECB17B254E1B5837E1DA2A9024846),( Cambridge University Press) decodes the dynamics of this meeting and brings to light what it reveals by implication: a silent marginalization of Europe.** ## Corps du texte The scale of the media coverage given to Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing confirms, if confirmation were needed, the centrality of Sino-American relations in the international order. The lessons of this trip are very numerous, as much for what was said as for what was left unsaid. We will single out three: the interpersonal dimension of the relationship between Trump and Xi Jinping; the political assessment of the results of this visit in light of the expectations of the two parties; and finally, the analysis of the consequences of this dynamic for Europe, which clearly finds itself caught in the trap of a new bipolarity whose effects are scarcely reassuring for it. The Xi Jinping – Trump relationship ----------------------------------- The interpersonal dimension of the ties between leaders is too often underestimated. Either because it is considered too psychologizing, or because it is perceived as secondary in relation to the structural factors that determine relations between States. And yet, in this case, it is absolutely essential: on the one hand, in view of the personality of Donald Trump, who appears both unpredictable and very often out of step with the establishment’s vision of China in the United States; on the other hand, because of the mistrust that is settling more and more into the relationship between the two countries. Having arrived in Beijing equipped only with disposable phones, the American delegation was able to re-board the presidential plane at the end of the stay only after having duly disposed of all the gifts offered by the Chinese delegation. The American intelligence services apparently did not want these to find their way aboard Air Force One. In such a context, interpersonal relations matter, because they help either to deepen this mistrust when they are not good, or to contain it when they are better. Now, on this point, one can, without paradox, consider that the personal relationship between Trump and Xi Jinping exerts a stabilizing effect on Sino-American relations — which may seem surprising given the personality of Donald Trump. During his first term, Trump was not in Beijing’s good graces. Elected on an anti-Chinese agenda, he took significant tariff measures, set up tools to control technological exports to China, and restricted Chinese investment access to American infrastructure, notably in the telecommunications field. In reality, Trump, by force of circumstances, fell into line during his first term with a classic position that made China the foremost rival of the United States: a rival that, in a certain way, had to be constrained, and whose ascent it was important to block, as the National Security Strategy of 2017 suggested. Now, one of the reasons he did not manage, at that time, to build a strong interpersonal relationship with Xi Jinping came from the fact that his entourage was very largely dominated by a classic, anti-Chinese Republican establishment with which he did not get along. As proof, the waltz of national security advisers he went through then: four in four years. Since the start of his second term, Trump’s internal position has changed markedly. He is now surrounded by close associates who owe everything to him and many of whom are outsiders to the establishment. The fact that Marco Rubio holds in his hands both the posts of Secretary of State and national security adviser shows the little confidence Trump places in the American bureaucracy. The National Security Council, which is supposed to coordinate American foreign policy, finds itself marginalized — as does, moreover, the State Department, where, out of 195 diplomatic posts, 115 are vacant, and where 90% of ambassadorial nominations are made outside the career diplomatic service. In effect, Trump has freer rein to conduct a personal foreign policy. Toward China, his positioning is inspired by three elements: an indisputable fascination with Xi Jinping as the uncontested leader of a strong regime and a very powerful country; a real respect for what China has been able to achieve so quickly; and finally, the will to come to an arrangement with it, while judging the competition between the two States both natural and inevitable. This Darwinian vision of the world order is one that Xi Jinping amply shares. He harbors no illusions about the prospect of a Sino-American rapprochement. One may even consider that he does not desire it, since, in the long run, his strategic objective is to decouple China from the United States. But, while waiting to achieve this, he needs Sino-American relations to be stabilized and managed — hence the recourse to the formula of “constructive strategic stability” that he defended during Trump’s visit and that the latter did not really seek to contest. Xi Jinping is, at bottom, taking up the strategic line defined by Mao Zedong in a famous 1938 article, in which he set out the Chinese strategy of protracted war to defeat Japan. This strategy proceeds through three stages: a first defensive phase; a second characterized by a kind of status quo between two equivalent powers; and finally, a powerful and victorious counter-offensive. Today, China clearly sees itself in phase two of the Maoist strategy. And all the unofficial Chinese commentary, which it is always worth taking the trouble to read, agrees in seeing this visit as an evident gain for China. The great paradox is that with China, Trump is infinitely more predictable than with Europe, for example. On the one hand, because he is extremely sensitive to balances of power; on the other hand, because he has taken the measure of the limits of American coercive power over Beijing. From this point of view, more than the visit to Beijing itself, it is truly the Sino-American trade agreements of Busan, in October 2025, that constitute the mark of the competitive stabilization of Sino-American relations. This is made possible by the fact that the two powers now possess a kind of mutually assured destruction power: semiconductors and AI for the United States, rare earths and magnets for China. For Xi Jinping, Trump’s visit to Beijing was meant both to prolong the Busan armistice and to obtain American assurances on Taiwan. On Trump’s side, the objectives were much less clear: he wanted, first and foremost, to display a personal success, to obtain promises to purchase American products, and to highlight the excellence of his relationship with Xi Jinping. Being good with the strong and hard with the weak is at the heart of his psychology and his political practice. The prolonged armistice ----------------------- In effect, Xi Jinping and Trump have apparently managed to put in place a modus operandi that seems to suit them and that should be able to endure. When significant disagreements arise, the two leaders talk to each other. But the condition the Chinese set for this interpersonal dialogue is to avoid publicly exposing these differences. Now, curiously, Trump — who is in the habit of talking a great deal, of not bothering with diplomatic conventions, and of sometimes insulting his partners in the Oval Office — seems perfectly won over to this form of discretion to which Xi Jinping calls him. As to the question of whether, in his view, Xi Jinping is a dictator, Trump moreover avoided answering, whereas his predecessor Joe Biden, confronted with the same question, had clearly answered in the affirmative just after the end of his meeting with the Chinese leader. For all that, nothing is settled. It is more than likely that Xi Jinping will wait to see the decision Trump takes on arms sales to Taiwan before contemplating anything whatsoever. In this respect, the very long interview Trump gave to Fox News just after his return from China says infinitely more about the real content of the visit than the non-joint communiqués published by both Washington and Beijing. In it, Trump concedes having learned a great deal from Xi Jinping on the Taiwan question, and notably on the historical link it maintains with the Korean War. This suggests, by implication, that he had hardly been interested in the subject before then. Deep down, Trump is probably inclined to think that Taiwan must return to Beijing. Otherwise, he would not have made the following remarks: “You know, when you look at the odds, China is a very, very powerful, big country. That’s a very small island. Think of it, it’s 59 miles away. 59 miles. We’re 9,500 miles away. That’s a little bit of a difficult problem. \[…\] I do say this: Taiwan would be very smart to cool it a little bit. China would be very smart to cool it a little bit. They ought to both cool it.” He had used exactly the same parallel to speak of Ukraine, saying: “You know we have an ocean that’s separating us, right? A thing called… an ocean. A big, beautiful ocean.” By declaring that arms deliveries to Taiwan constitute for him an instrument of negotiation with China, Trump believes he is scoring a point and thereby holding leverage over Beijing. But this calculation seems bound to turn against him, because it amounts to admitting that Taiwan represents the last means of pressure the United States would have over China: “The net effect of his remarks was to suggest that his views on Taiwanese independence were closer to Beijing’s preferences, that Taiwan bore greater responsibility for preventing a conflict, and that American security support for Taiwan was negotiable with China.” Moreover, Trump sees in Taiwan a technological competitor that supposedly stole from the United States its leadership in the production of advanced semiconductors. He is therefore working to ensure that TSMC, the world leader in the sector, massively develops its investments in the United States. And when this objective is achieved, Taiwan will, in his eyes, lose all strategic value. For Europe, Sino-American bipolarity is not an abstraction ---------------------------------------------------------- Europe has, of course, no interest in a Sino-American conflict. But a co-management of the world order by the two superpowers would be just as worrying. It would result in a strictly bilateral and mercantile handling of relations between the United States and China, one that would set aside the entire question of the structural imbalances generated by the Chinese economy. The figures speak for themselves: according to Chinese customs data, in the first half of 2025 Chinese exports to the United States fell by 10.7% (about 25.7 billion dollars), while, over the same period, Chinese exports to the European Union rose by 6.9% (+16.3 billion dollars); over the full year, the decline toward the United States reached 17.8% and the increase toward the EU 7.5%. The asymmetry is itself telling: American imports from China collapsed by roughly 45% over the twelve months to November 2025, a sign of accelerating decoupling, whereas the rise in Chinese shipments to Europe stems less from a mechanical rerouting away from the closed American market than from the overall surge in China’s worldwide exports — which makes the pressure on Europe structural rather than merely incidental. This is hardly surprising: as the American market closes to Chinese products, the latter pour in part into Europe. A Europe that must, moreover, face significant American tariff pressure. Its exports, both to the United States and to China, are not increasing, while its imports from China are growing. Even more worrying: Europe has no multilateral framework (G7 or WTO) with which to constrain Beijing, since the United States does not want one. It is therefore left to its own devices. Its preference for multilateralism spins in a vacuum in the face of two superpowers quite determined to settle their problems between themselves. To this is added the differences of view among Europeans on how to gauge the second China shock. For in the face of China, the positions of the member States are not identical. Spain is playing the China card to the hilt to create jobs, notably in the automobile sector, at the risk of allowing Chinese companies to use that country as a springboard toward the rest of the European market. Even Germany has an ambivalent position: it must arbitrate between small and medium-sized enterprises alarmed by Chinese competition and large companies very strongly established in China, which wish to be able to remain there. The fact, moreover, that even Ukraine does not seem to have been raised by the two parties confirms that European stakes now weigh little in the Sino-American balance. For Europe, Sino-American bipolarity is now a reality. ### Thématique `#Géopolitique` **Licence :** `#CC-BY-ND (Attribution, Pas de modification)` **Langue :** `#Français` --- ### Navigation pour IA - [Index de tous les contenus](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/llms.txt) - [Plan du site (Sitemap)](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/sitemap.xml) - [Retour à l'accueil](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/)