China and the U.S. Agreed to ‘Strategic Stability’ in Beijing. They Don’t Define It the Same Way

(Zongyuan Zoe Liu – Council on Foreign Relations) The Beijing summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping produced something rarer than a breakthrough: a mutually useful ambiguity. Washington came away advertising deals. Beijing came away advertising a doctrine. Both sides claimed stability. But a close comparison of the two readouts shows they did not mean the same thing. The White House framed the summit as a package of practical wins. Its fact sheet emphasized a “constructive relationship of strategic stability” based on “fairness and reciprocity,” a fall visit by Xi to Washington, and understandings on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and North Korea. It also packaged the summit’s commercial deliverables around rare earths and critical mineral supply chains concerns, Boeing aircraft purchases, agricultural purchases, beef market access, and poultry imports. Most strikingly, it called the formation of the new U.S.-China Board of Trade and Board of Investment the “cornerstone” of the agreement—not the Boeing order or farm purchases, but the institutional mechanism through which future trade and investment disputes are supposed to be managed. – China and the U.S. Agreed to ‘Strategic Stability’ in Beijing. They Don’t Define It the Same Way. | Council on Foreign Relations