Xi-Trump summit shows a rivalry being managed, not resolved
By MLex Staff ( May 20, 2026, 07:12 GMT | Comment) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping’s question to Donald Trump about whether the US and China can escape the “Thucydides Trap” framed a summit that showed the two powers are learning to manage competition rather than end it. The structure of their agreements revealed which parts of the relationship remain negotiable — and which have already become strategically untouchable.When Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed his US counterpart Donald Trump to Beijing last week, he posed a question that cuts to the heart of 21st-century geopolitics: "Can China and the US transcend the 'Thucydides Trap' and create a new model of major-country relations?"...
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