- China
- US Foreign Policy
- International Affairs
- Confronting and Competing with China
- Determining America's Role in the World
Elisa Zhai Autry, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, formerly served as chief policy adviser for public diplomacy on China and the East Asia–Pacific region at the US Department of State.
Even as President Trump arrives in Beijing to meet Xi Jinping, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has already made its first public messaging move. Its May 11 summit video calls for “peaceful coexistence.” The phrase is not new. What is revealing is how Beijing chooses to present it at this critical moment. Three elements stand out, and together they suggest that Beijing itself views the relationship as fragile, mistrustful, and lacking good pathways for collaboration.
No post-2015 “success story”
In the propaganda video, Beijing’s narrative leans entirely on old episodes: the Flying Tigers (American volunteer pilots who fought for China in the early years of World War II), the “ping‑pong diplomacy” of 1971, post‑9/11 counterterrorism cooperation, the 2008 global financial crisis, and US–China coordination in combating Ebola in 2014–15. In other words, Beijing could not pin down one “success story” or milestone since the first Trump administration as a model of US–China collaboration.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to argue for coexistence, but it fails to provide any credible, recent example of reciprocal “coexistence” to support that framing. The absence of a single post‑2015 example across both Trump administrations and the Biden administration is itself a message: under Xi, Beijing does not see a contemporary pathway in the relationship that can produce sustainable peace.
Business ties used as leverage
The video then turns to business. It claims there are 80,000 US companies in China and highlights Apple and Tesla as proof that the two countries “need each other” because US firms are deeply invested there. At the same time, recent regulatory moves show Beijing increasingly treating that interdependence as a strategic buffer and a lever against US pressure.
The Commerce Ministry’s first operational use of China’s “blocking rules” to bar compliance with certain US sanctions on Chinese refiners is a case in point. That step, which concerns Iranian oil, turns the blocking rules from rhetoric into an institutional countermeasure and creates a direct conflict of laws for multinationals: legal risk in China if they follow US sanctions, and penalties in the United States if they do not.
Against that backdrop, Beijing’s portrayal of business as a peacemaking force would, in practice, turn US commercial exposure into a source of political leverage for the CCP.
Blurring “goodwill” to deflect regime criticism
Whenever US-China relations seem to deteriorate, Beijing brings up people-to-people exchanges. Appeals to goodwill between Americans and Chinese sound peaceful, but in the party’s political language, such appeals often come with a strategic blurring of the line between the party and the people. If that distinction disappears, criticism of regime behavior can be repackaged as an attack on “Chinese people” as a whole.
It is one of the main ways Beijing tries to delegitimize outside criticism and to amplify the notion that the party is the only legitimate voice of the people.
How Washington should answer
Beijing’s video calls out the United States to “choose the right course” (相向而行). However, the US response should highlight three points.
First, embrace systemic difference without apology. US officials should state clearly that the United States and China are governed by fundamentally different political and economic systems. Beijing itself repeats that the two sides have irreconcilable differences and cannot change one another. Washington can accept that reality while making equally clear that coexistence is only possible if the rule of law, values, and constitutionally protected freedoms are preserved. Systemic difference should be treated as the starting point for policy, not a justification for coercive behavior or asymmetric expectations.
Second, defend economic engagement with the rule of law. The question is not whether the two sides will trade; they will. The question is whether trade and investment are governed by transparent, enforceable rules and genuinely reciprocal standards. When Washington enforces sanctions on illicit Iranian commerce, including that with Chinese entities, it is treating these matters as national security tools, not just trade disputes. Beijing cannot at once tell firms to ignore those restrictions, punish them for following US law, and still bargain for unrestricted access to US markets.
Third, separate the Chinese people from the party. The United States should affirm its respect for the Chinese people, even as it pushes back against the policies and practices of the CCP. President Trump has spoken of “deep respect and admiration for the Chinese people,” and that line should be reinforced, not sidelined. As Beijing urges foreigners not to “believe Western media” and to “come see the real China,” Washington should, in parallel, welcome Chinese students and visitors to come and see America with their own eyes—America is not perfect, but America is very different from how it is portrayed in anti‑US propaganda in authoritarian countries. US policy should resist the party’s narrative that any criticism of the government somehow “hurts the feelings” of all Chinese people.
Seen this way, Beijing’s summit messaging conveys weakness. It invokes history because recent examples of bilateral cooperation are scarce. It emphasizes business because commercial ties still provide leverage. And it leans heavily on the language of friendship because that language helps soften the line between people and regime. Washington’s answer should be clear about those distinctions: between the Chinese people and the party, between trade and coercion, and between coexistence and conciliation.
