China is placing itself in the driver's seat in great power relations with the US. At the end of a once-postponed Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, Xi set the rules - 'managed competition' and a 'relationship of strategic stability' as governing principles. Lack of concrete outcomes was offset by the US acknowledgement that China is a peer-power.
Xi's reference to a 'Thucydides trap' positioning the US as a declining power didn't go down well with Trump. A decade ago, Xi had denied that such a 'trap' was possible. That's the distance China has travelled. The two sides extended the truce achieved in Busan last year. But there didn't seem to be major concessions by either.
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