Trump’s sharp turn on China: Embracing it as a peer power
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US President Donald Trump speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping while leaving after a visit to the Zhongnanhai Garden in Beijing, China, on May 15.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Edward Wong
BEIJING – After meeting China’s top diplomat in Malaysia in the summer of 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio uttered a line that made few waves at the time but would later help pave the way for an abrupt change.
The United States and China, Rubio said, had an “opportunity here to achieve some strategic stability” and find areas of cooperation. He used the phrase again in February while talking about China in the Caribbean, also to little notice.
