The TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump is heading back from his high-stakes Beijing summit facing a storm of criticism at home that he effectively conceded geopolitical ground to a rising China, even as he touted commercial agreements and claimed he had stood firm on Taiwan.
The visit, wrapped in elaborate ceremony but thin on substantive breakthroughs, underscored both the deep interdependence and growing mistrust between the world’s two largest powers. While Trump proclaimed great chemistry with Chinese President Xi Jinping and talked up four more meetings in 2026, many American analysts concluded that Beijing emerged with the greater strategic victory: international optics of equality with Washington and evidence that the US is increasingly constrained in confronting Chinese power.
