Xi Rolls Out 'Constructive Strategic Stability' for US Ties
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- Xi Jinping introduced a new 'authoritative formulation' (tífǎ) called 'constructive strategic stability' at last month's Beijing summit, defined by Xinhua in four layers: cooperation as mainstay, moderate competition, manageable differences, and enduring stability with peace.
- Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the 'bottom line' requires both sides to respect each other's social systems, development paths, core interests, and right to development, with guardrails to keep competition 'within proper limits' and stop the relationship from becoming a 'roller coaster.'
- The pivot reverses the Biden-era stance, when China showed less interest in guardrails and Xi declared in March 2021 that 'time is on our side' amid a perception of US decline.
- Wang Yi argued the US is now more prone to 'use war and conquest and the threat of war' to compensate for declining economic competitiveness — a view echoed by Renmin University's Jin Canrong, who said US 'toughness and arrogance' reflect accelerated decline through 'self-depletion.'
- The formulation frames China as a peer and equal of the US in contributing to international order; Zongyuan Zoe Liu notes the implication is that Washington should 'refrain from defining the relationship primarily as strategic competition.'
- The Trump administration's apparent acceptance of the phraseology — if not its substance — is viewed in Beijing as a win in establishing the 'proper limits' of US-China rivalry on China's terms.
Why it matters: By adopting Beijing's vocabulary for the relationship, the Trump administration has effectively endorsed China's claim to be a peer competitor whose 'core interests' must be respected — replacing Xi's 2021 'time is on our side' confidence with a demand for guardrails that constrain how Washington frames the rivalry. The diplomatic phrasing win for Beijing now raises the bar for any US move that reverts to treating the contest as open-ended strategic competition.
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