Beijing lowers the tone toward Washington as it prepares the ground for the Xi–Trump summit
In recent weeks, China has been sending an increasingly open message that it wants to turn 2026 into a year of stabilising relations with the United States of America. In Beijing, this is not being framed as the disappearance of deep disputes, but rather as an attempt to manage a relationship that is too important to be left to a new uncontrolled escalation. That tone became especially visible in the appearances of Chinese officials during the annual political gathering in the capital, where, alongside messages about a “turning point” in relations between the two powers, a diplomatic framework for a possible meeting between President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump at the end of March is also being prepared ever more clearly.
At the centre of China’s message is the effort to describe the relationship with Washington as strategically competitive, but still manageable. This means that Beijing is not giving up its hard positions on trade, technology, Taiwan, security in the Indo-Pacific, and China’s role in the international order, but at the same time it is trying to show that there is room for political control of the conflict. For the Chinese leadership, such communication also has both a foreign-policy and a domestic-political function: toward the outside world it sends a signal of predictability, while to the domestic public and the markets it sends a message that the state leadership is trying to reduce risks in a year already burdened by slower economic growth and heightened global tensions.
More conciliatory language without abandoning key disputes
The change in tone does not mean a change in Chinese strategy, but above all a different style of public presentation. Over the past weeks, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has repeatedly stressed that China-US relations can move toward a more stable framework if both sides work in the direction of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and cooperation that benefits both sides. In this, he particularly emphasised the importance of communication at the highest level, with the message that “head-of-state diplomacy” has an irreplaceable role in giving political direction to relations between the world’s two largest powers.
Such wording is not accidental. Beijing has previously insisted that key issues should be resolved through direct political channels at the top, especially when regular diplomatic or military contacts fall into deadlock. Now that pattern is returning to the foreground at a moment when both sides are clearly assessing that a new round of uncontrolled hardening would benefit neither one side nor the other. Chinese diplomacy is therefore trying to create the impression that this is not an improvised softening of rhetoric, but a considered attempt to return relations to a framework in which competition and disagreement are present, but are not the only form of communication.
This is important also because Chinese statements do not show any abandonment of hard positions where Beijing believes fundamental state interests are at stake. Taiwan remains a red line, technological restrictions coming from the US continue to be interpreted as an attempt to curb Chinese development, and criticism of American unilateralism remains a regular part of Chinese diplomatic language. That is precisely why the more conciliatory tone carries greater weight: it does not come from a position of concession, but from an assessment that controlled dialogue is more useful than open collision.
The summit as an attempt at political stabilisation of relations
According to available information from American and international sources, preparations are under way for Trump’s visit to China from 31 March to 2 April, during which he is expected to hold a meeting with Xi Jinping. Although Beijing carefully chooses its words in public appearances and does not disclose all details in advance, Chinese officials have in recent days clearly suggested that they want to create a favourable atmosphere for that meeting. That is precisely why words such as “stability”, “direction”, “communication”, and “managing differences” dominate Chinese messages.
For both sides, the summit has more than symbolic value. In relations between Beijing and Washington, personal contact between leaders has for years served as a mechanism for stopping the downward spiral of mistrust. Such meetings do not erase deep structural disputes, but they can open space for limited agreements, temporary truces, and political signals that are then operationally elaborated by ministries, trade negotiators, and security teams. At the current moment, this is especially important because the relationship between the two powers is burdened by both economic and geopolitical issues that overlap with one another.
Beijing also wants to leave the impression that the summit does not arise from weakness, but from an awareness of global responsibility. Over the past weeks, official Chinese appearances have often linked Sino-American relations with the broader international order, with the claim that the way in which the two powers treat one another affects security, trade, investment, and the general level of uncertainty in the world. In this way, China is trying to present its own diplomacy as rational and stabilising, while at the same time retaining the right to react sharply when it judges that its interests are threatened.
Trade remains the most tangible field of both cooperation and conflict
The economic dimension will probably be the most important concrete topic of a possible meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. In recent years, the US-China relationship has been marked by tariffs, export controls, pressure on technological supply chains, the issue of subsidies, industrial policy, and market access. Even when both sides speak of stabilisation, behind such rhetoric there is no idea of returning to the old phase of open economic interdependence, but rather an attempt to manage a rivalry that is already deeply embedded in trade and industrial policy.
That is precisely why the fact is important that a kind of trade truce agreed as far back as October last year is in force between Washington and Beijing. That truce did not resolve the key disputes, but it did open space to reduce immediate pressure on companies, investors, and supply chains. The question now is whether that framework can be extended, broadened, or at least politically reinforced before the logic of punitive measures and reciprocal restrictions once again prevails. In that sense, the summit could serve as a point of political confirmation that both sides, at least temporarily, want to retain control over economic disputes.
For China, this issue is additionally sensitive because its economy is facing a slowdown, problems in the real-estate market, weaker domestic consumption, and pressure to maintain growth and technological advancement at the same time. This year’s Chinese growth target, according to the government report presented at the session of the highest legislative body, has been set in the range of 4.5 to 5 percent. This is a clear signal that Beijing still wants stability, but also acknowledges that the international environment, including tensions with the US, remains one of the main burdens on the economy. Because of this, Chinese messages toward Washington also have a very practical economic logic: less political noise means more room for managing domestic problems.
Technology, chips, and industrial policy remain the hard core of rivalry
Although public messages now emphasise stability, it is difficult to expect that a rapid turnaround will take place precisely on sensitive technological issues. American policy toward China has for some time moved beyond the trade deficit toward a much broader goal: limiting Chinese progress in strategic sectors such as advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and high-performance computing. On the Chinese side, the response has been an accelerated strengthening of industrial self-sufficiency, investment in domestic supply chains, and the political transformation of technological autonomy into a matter of national security.
This means that even the more conciliatory tone will have clear limits. Beijing may agree to calmer public rhetoric, more contacts, and better crisis control, but it will hardly accept the American strategy of technological containment as the new normal without a political response. On the other hand, Washington can hardly give up restrictions that enjoy broad support in the American political establishment, regardless of party divisions. That is precisely why it is more realistic to expect partial agreements on procedures, channels of communication, and perhaps certain trade facilitations, than a great historic turning point.
In the meantime, on the domestic front the Chinese authorities are further pushing the narrative of modernisation, industrial renewal, and resilience to external pressure. At this year’s political session, emphasis was once again placed on technological development, next-generation production capacities, and China’s ability to base growth on innovation, and not only on exports and investment in real estate. Within such a framework, the relationship with the US is not merely a diplomatic issue, but the central test of whether China can simultaneously protect its own development ambitions and avoid an open economic rupture with its largest external competitor.
Geopolitics further complicates the attempt to calm things down
In addition to trade and technology, the relationship between Beijing and Washington is burdened by a series of crises outside their direct bilateral framework. In recent days, the Chinese leadership has also been commenting strongly on conflicts in the Middle East, with Wang Yi warning that war against Iran should not have broken out and that disputes must be resolved by political means. Although China is not thereby breaking off communication with the US, Chinese messages clearly show an attempt to portray Washington as an actor inclined to unilateral moves, while Beijing seeks to present itself as an advocate of negotiations and international institutions.
Such rhetoric has a dual function. On the one hand, China is defending its own strategic and energy interests because any major disruption in the Middle East directly affects Chinese energy supplies and global trade routes. On the other hand, Chinese diplomacy also uses every major international crisis to reinforce the broader political message that the world needs predictability, multilateralism, and less dependence on unilateral decisions by great powers. In this way, the US-China relationship gains an additional dimension: it is not only a conflict of interests, but also a struggle over who will be perceived as the more responsible manager of international stability.
Still, precisely such a broader geopolitical context may encourage both sides to be cautious. When the global security space becomes more unstable, the interest in keeping at least the most important bilateral relationships under control also grows. Therefore, the more conciliatory tone from Beijing is not necessarily a sign of profound rapprochement, but it is an indicator that China currently considers it useful to avoid opening yet another major front with the US. There is probably also an American interest in that assessment, because Washington is simultaneously managing multiple crises and can hardly profit from a new unlimited confrontation with Beijing.
A message to markets and allies: rivalry remains, but without a sudden blow
Looked at more closely, Chinese rhetoric is not intended only for the White House. It is equally directed at financial markets, exporters, global companies, Asian neighbours, and European partners who in recent years have increasingly sought an answer to the same question: can the world’s two largest powers keep their rivalry within politically tolerable limits? When Beijing speaks of a “turning point” and the need to maintain top-level communication, it is in fact trying to influence the perception of risk throughout the entire international system.
For markets, every indication matters that the tariff or technological conflict will not suddenly flare up. For America’s European and Asian allies, it is important to know whether Washington and Beijing will remain in a phase of controlled competition or once again move into a period of harsh, unpredictable moves. And for countries of the Global South, Chinese diplomacy is trying to leave the impression that Beijing offers a calmer and more predictable pattern of international behaviour. In other words, the more conciliatory tone toward Washington is at the same time both a foreign-policy signal and an instrument for shaping the global political image of China.
But such a strategy also carries risks. If expectations from the Xi–Trump summit become too high and concrete results remain modest, then the current softer rhetoric could very quickly be replaced by a new wave of disappointment and harder statements. The very preparation of such meetings often reveals just how deep the differences between the two sides are: from trade rules and export controls to security in the Asian space, the Taiwan issue, and interpretations of the international order. Because of this, the real reach of a possible meeting should not be measured by grandiose formulas, but by whether the two sides manage to keep channels open and avoid new political shocks.
A year of deciding the tone, not the end of rivalry
Everything that can be heard from Beijing in recent days points to the same conclusion: China wants to lower the temperature in relations with the United States, but without the illusion that this will make the fundamental causes of conflict disappear. Beijing is counting on top-level communication to ensure at least minimal strategic stability, especially at a moment when the global environment is becoming even more complex and the Chinese economy is seeking a more predictable external framework. Washington, on the other hand, has its own reasons to maintain contact, from trade and markets to the management of regional crises.
In that sense, messages about a “turning point” should be read cautiously. This is not an announcement of a new golden age of Sino-American relations, but an attempt to return the relationship to a phase of controlled rivalry in which conversation, a summit, and a political signal are important precisely because there is not enough trust. If the meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump does indeed take place according to the announced schedule, it will be important above all as a test of whether the two powers can agree on rules for managing rivalry in a period when neither one nor the other wants to look weak, but both have enough reasons to avoid yet another major upheaval.
Sources:- Associated Press – report on Wang Yi’s messages that 2026 can be a “breakthrough” or “significant” year for China-US relations and on the preparation of the summit meeting (link)- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China – Wang Yi’s statement from Munich on the “promising prospects” of Sino-American relations and the possibility of cooperation with a pragmatic approach (link)- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China – report on the meeting between Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with the message that 2026 should be a year of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and cooperation (link)- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China – regular press conference emphasising that head-of-state diplomacy has an irreplaceable role in guiding China-US relations (link)- White House – official presentation of the trade and economic agreement between the US and China reached in November 2025, important for understanding the current truce in trade relations (link)- Reuters / reports carried by multiple media outlets – announcement that Donald Trump will visit China from 31 March to 2 April 2026, which creates the immediate diplomatic framework of the current softening of tone (link)- Government of the PRC / Xinhua – official announcement that China’s 2026 economic growth target has been set in the range of 4.5 to 5 percent, which explains why external stability is important to Beijing (link)- Financial Times – analysis of China’s signal that it wants to maintain the summit despite international crises and assessments of what a Xi–Trump meeting could mean for trade and broader stability (link)
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