It has been a turbulent year for the fraught US-China relationship. In a new series, we look back at the events of 2025, starting with the geopolitical struggle between the two rival superpowers.
In a year marked by domestic crises and global turmoil, Washington and Beijing are set to end 2025 with a fragile truce after they stepped back from the brink of full-blown tariff warfare – but deeper antagonisms remain.
The downward spiral of rhetoric and retaliation started with US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and vow for a “total decoupling” from China – echoing his first‑term trade war. But it culminated in an unexpected late‑year thaw at a leadership summit in Busan, South Korea.
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Observers broadly agree that this was neither a return to engagement nor a shift towards “managed competition” but rather a tactical pause. It was seen as a mutual de-escalation shaped by domestic imperatives and global pressures that have pushed most countries to hedge rather than choose sides.
It lowered the temperature but did little to alter a relationship that most analysts see as structurally adversarial, with the pause seen as having more to do with the greater struggle over the future of the global order.
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At the core of that struggle is the question of which political and economic system will prove more resilient in a crisis‑ridden world – a contest that experts say has only intensified in the past year, even as both sides temporarily set aside their harshest economic weapons.
The year’s events also underscored a fundamental asymmetry between Washington and Beijing, with each testing the limits of coexistence.