Friday’s phone call between the leaders of China and the United States could deliver a marked – if fragile – improvement in stability in the world’s most consequential relationship, Chinese observers said.
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However, they also sounded a note of caution. One analyst highlighted serious sources of friction, such as confrontations in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, while another warned that US tariff threats over China’s purchase of Russian oil and potential American secondary sanctions could also hurt the positive momentum.
In the nearly two-hour phone call starting at 8pm Beijing time, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump discussed topics ranging from trade frictions to a deal on the control of TikTok.
It was the second call between the two leaders since Trump’s return to the White House in January and their third this year.
Trump described Friday’s talks as “very productive”, while Beijing said the phone call was “pragmatic, positive and constructive”.
In what many read as a sign of potential stability in bilateral relations, Trump announced that he and Xi would meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea in six weeks, and that he also planned to visit China “in the early part of next year”.
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Xi, “likewise [would] come to the United States at an appropriate time”, Trump said in a social media post after the call.