At their May summit in Beijing, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared to be serious about restoring strong trade ties and managing the difficult issue of Taiwan. They agreed to promote “constructive relationship of strategic stability” between the United States and China—ambiguous words that the two sides may be heading towards interpret differently but nevertheless it is a sign of a common desire to overcome their differences.
However, strategic trust or friendship is not enough for stability, and despite the high positive sentiment, cooperation between Washington and Beijing is now more challenging and dangerous than ever. Trump and Xi have violently shaken up their political systems and concentrated power in their hands, shuffling the institutions, channels of communication, and bureaucracy necessary to avoid or minimize chaos. This erosion of process and predictability has reduced the diplomatic protections that, in the past, kept the two superpowers from reaching the brink.
At their May summit in Beijing, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared to be serious about restoring strong trade ties and managing the difficult issue of Taiwan. They agreed to promote “constructive relationship of strategic stability” between the United States and China—ambiguous words that the two sides may be heading towards interpret differently but nevertheless it is a sign of a common desire to overcome their differences.
However, strategic trust or friendship is not enough for stability, and despite the high positive sentiment, cooperation between Washington and Beijing is now more challenging and dangerous than ever. Trump and Xi have violently shaken up their political systems and concentrated power in their hands, shuffling the institutions, channels of communication, and bureaucracy necessary to avoid or minimize chaos. This erosion of process and predictability has reduced the diplomatic protections that, in the past, kept the two superpowers from reaching the brink.
Trump and Xi they have discarded expertise and competence in favor of absolute loyalty through the wholesale withdrawal of foreign policy and other expertise. In Washington, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency slashed spending and laid off government workers en masse, echoing Trump’s criticism of what he saw as “woke” executives and government waste. Meanwhile, several generals have been demoted or stripped of their ranks, while hundreds of diplomats have been fired or forced into early retirement.
In Beijing, relentless anti-corruption campaigns have become the main tool for removing officials seen as disloyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and, in particular, to its “core”: Xi himself. Of the officers purged in the Chinese army until February, 61 percent had important executive roles. China’s foreign policy bureaucracy has suffered greatly: Foreign Minister Qin Gang, for example, disappeared from view in mid-2023, becoming the shortest-serving senior diplomat in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Accomplished diplomat Liu Jianchao, one of Qin’s potential successors and head of the CCP’s International Department, was suddenly detained in 2025.
Key policy-making institutions have also been destroyed. In the United States, the National Security Council (NSC) has traditionally been important for coordinating agencies in the federal government and providing day-to-day expert advice to the president. However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser, appears to be focusing on his foreign ministry—and distracted by his role as Venezuela’s top administrator—instead of agency coordination, while his controversial changes to NSC processes have left the board in disarray.
In China, Xi’s ongoing crackdown on senior military leaders has reduced the Central Military Commission (CMC) — the military’s top governing body — to an unprecedented two members. After the removal of five top generals, only the civilian chairman (Xi) and one uniformed general (Zhang Shengmin, head of the CMC Disciplinary Inspection Commission) remained. The CMC intends to provide China’s supreme commander with expert advice on important military issues. The present body cannot fulfill that task.
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Taiwanese flags are on a street in Kinmen, Taiwan, on October 29, 2025. Taiwanese flags are on a street in Kinmen, Taiwan, on October 29, 2025. Beijing Tries to Break US Narrative on Taiwan
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Trump and Xi are seen standing close to each other, both wearing black suits and ties and smiling slightly. Trump leans in close to whisper something in Xi’s ear. Trump and Xi are seen standing close to each other, both wearing black suits and ties and smiling slightly. Trump leans in close to whisper something in Xi’s ear. What Five Decades of Meetings Reveal About US-China Relations
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Valuing trust over expertise and undermining key policy-making institutions shape the management of the US-China relationship in two ways.
The first is the erosion of transparency, further facilitated by the lack of a plan to address the issue. Identifying suitable Chinese counterparts for US officials and agencies has been a perennial problem for the US that has worsened in recent years. It is unclear who, other than Trump and Xi, has been appointed to speak with authority or negotiate on any issue. For example, the US government appears to recognize Defense Secretary Dong Jun as the Chinese counterpart to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Yet Dong’s title is only honorary: He has yet to be appointed CMC despite assuming a ministerial post in 2023, a departure from precedent and the likely consequences of Xi’s upheaval. Regardless, Hegseth seems satisfied pro forma meetings and who is supposed to be equal to the institution.
China is facing the same problem. Chinese officials and analysts are at the loss of identifying an individual or individuals in the Trump administration who have primary responsibility for managing security or economic relations with China. On the security side, Hegseth is far from China-centric, while Rubio is spread too thin, wearing too many hats. On business, is it Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick or Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—or, perhaps, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner?
The second major consequence of the constant purges of workers and the weakening of institutions is a predictable decline. When leaders are unrestrained and surrounded by leaders who have little incentive to speak truth to power, policy becomes as uncertain and extreme as their own views on any issue. It’s hard to tell whether Xi’s or Trump’s pronouncements will translate into long-term policy change—or whether they’ll last until the next Social Truth post or article in Qiushithe official journal of the Central Committee of the CCP.
Take Taiwan. While it has long been the most contentious issue in US-China relations, tensions have risen in recent decades, and the potential for military conflict has increased, a problem that has been fueled largely by two dysfunctional administrations. On the one hand, Trump’s recent public comments calling for a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan — which is currently on hold despite being approved by Congress last year — “A very good bargaining chip,” and reported talks with Xi in May, indicate a willingness to discuss changes in Washington’s policy to meet China’s position.” On the other hand, the Trump administration continues to engage in a consistent set of union-like activities and Taiwan, including training and arming Taiwan’s armed forces.
For China, Taiwan’s favorable agreement with the Trump administration seems surprising. Still in Beijing he can’t believe it Washington to implement the agreement reached. In the view of Chinese leaders, successive US administrations have failed to implement many of the official promises made to Beijing in the 1970s and early 1980s to withdraw from Taiwan. From Beijing’s point of view, this an enduring manifestation of American hypocrisy it has continued in the second Trump administration.
It is also highly doubtful that Beijing would fulfill any promises it might make to Washington in response to pressure on Taipei. In 2022, then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a controversial visit to Taiwan. Pelosi’s status—third in line to succeed the head of state as well as a member of the president’s own political party—marked, in Beijing’s view, a qualitative change in Washington’s Taiwan policy. Since then, China has been operating in one mode against Taiwan: high gear with high-pressure tactics. Beijing has stepped up gray zone operations against successive Democratic Progressive Party administrations in Taiwan, and any deal with Washington is unlikely to bring lasting change to the hard-line provocation.
Fixing a broken political system or a dysfunctional policy instrument is more challenging than rebuilding trust in bilateral relations and more difficult than designing and implementing workable policy. In the United States, this raises the uncomfortable question of whether the country’s democratic institutions still have the discipline, expertise, and accountability necessary for effective foreign policy. It also means that the global world and its most powerful rival may be less able than ever to resolve, or even effectively manage, contentious issues.
The danger, then, is not a new cold war but an unstable form of great power competition in which both sides are powerful, insecure, and increasingly unpredictable. Trump and Xi may sincerely wish to avoid war. They may even believe that their enhanced personal control over their respective systems gives them a stronger mandate to manage competition more effectively than their predecessors. However, the concentration of power around them weakens the institutions that make stable competition possible.
The main challenge for the US and China, then, is institutional rather than geopolitical. Taiwan, trade disputes, and technology competition are difficult in any case, but they become more dangerous when both sides are governed through increasingly selfish systems. A strong US-China relationship does not require friendship, strategic trust, or even the resolution of all major conflicts. Stability, however, requires functioning institutions, reliable channels of communication, and sufficient bureaucratic competence to prevent impulsive and unpredictable policies. Without this foundation, leaders like Trump and Xi — who insist they want stability — may find themselves unwitting generators of diplomatic chaos.
