Trump Greets Xi on Tarmac as US Accepts China as Peer — SkimNews
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- Donald Trump greeted Xi Jinping at Joint Base Andrews on September 23 in an unusual on-tarmac reception that strategic analysts read as Washington treating China as a peer rather than a subordinate power.
- George Yeo, Singapore's former foreign minister, argues the West is 'currently in the bargaining stage' of grief over China's rise; the author extends his reading to a seven-stage model: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, reconstruction, and acceptance.
- China now leads in electric vehicles, batteries, green energy, and 5G and competes hard in AI and semiconductors, ending the decades-long Western view of it as merely 'the world's workshop' making cheap goods.
- American policy over the past decade — tariffs, Huawei and semiconductor export controls, pressure on TikTok, and security groupings such as the Quad and AUKUS — reflects the 'anger' stage of directing grief outward at an external enemy.
- The author contends the US has progressed past bargaining into reconstruction and acceptance, evidenced by Trump treating Xi as an equal diplomatically while tariff and chip disputes continue underneath, which the piece calls 'negotiation in disguise.'
- Visible 'depression' signs across the US and Europe include bitter political divisions, extreme inequality, falling trust in democratic institutions, crumbling infrastructure, and a young generation doubting it will match its parents' standing.
Why it matters: The piece's central claim is that Trump's tarmac gesture reflects a genuine psychological shift toward treating China as an equal that has outpaced the angry, bargaining posture still dominant in US trade and tech policy. The source flags this gap as 'negotiation in disguise,' meaning diplomatic acceptance has not yet caught up across Congress and domestic politics, a divide the author argues the US must close to engage seriously on climate, pandemics, nuclear security, and AI risk.
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