DA Wei and ZHOU Wuhua | Seeking Constructive Strategic Stability: China-U.S. Relations in the Era of Dual-Core Multipolity
Only through these concerted efforts can they usher in a longer cycle of a “Constructive Relationship of Strategic Stability."
Welcome to the 75th edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m SUN Chenghao,a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies, a visiting scholar at Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School in 2024 and Munich Young Leader 2025.
ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me.
Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com
Today, we have selected an article written by Da Wei and Zhou Wuhua about China-U.S. Relations in the Era of “Dual-Core Multipolity”.
Summary
The international order defines the nature of state-to-state relations, while the nature of state-to-state relations shapes their contents. The post-Cold War global order has come to an end, and the international landscape is evolving toward a “Dual-Core Multipolar” order anchored in the pursuit of nation-state interests. Transformations in the international order have altered the nature of China-U.S. relations and necessitated a corresponding rebalancing of their contents. Since 2017, China and the United States have explored the new nature of bilateral relations amid strategic games. Over the past two years, this nature has become increasingly clear.
Accordingly, it is imperative to adjust the content of China-U.S. relations based on this evolving nature to forge a new state of stability. The decision by the Chinese and U.S. leaders to establish a “Constructive China-U.S. Relationship of Strategic Stability” as the new orientation of bilateral relations represents the latest effort to recalibrate the substance of China-U.S. relations. To this end, China and the United States need to establish an acceptable, predictable, and sustainable relationship of competitive coexistence across strategic perception, military security, economy, science, technology, and education, the Taiwan question, geopolitics, major country interactions, and global governance.
Why It Matters
Since Donald Trump first took office in 2017, the international order and the nature of China-U.S. relations have undergone a fundamental and profound shift. The international community, deeply troubled by geopolitical conflicts and a Cold War mentality, urgently requires the stabilization of major country interactions to inject certainty into the world. On May 14, 2026, the heads of state of China and the United States met in Beijing and reached a consensus on building a “Constructive China-U.S. Relationship of Strategic Stability” proposed by President Xi Jinping, providing the latest guidance for the future direction of bilateral relations.
From a structuralist perspective and borrowing the concept of equilibrium from thermodynamic systems, this article breaks away from the traditional equilibrium theory’s pursuit of absolute symmetry. It profoundly demonstrates how, amidst profound transformations in the international order, China and the United States can achieve a dynamic equilibrium, which may not be entirely symmetrical yet remains acceptable, predictable, and sustainable, through the adjustment of internal variables.
This offers a rational framework for crisis management to prevent major country competition from sliding into the Thucydides Trap. Furthermore, it provides an actionable logic for how both nations, in their future interactions, can translate macro strategic stability into cooperation across fields such as the economy, climate change, science, and technology, and how they can gradually accumulate mutual trust and recalibrate their relations to forge a relatively stable, healthy, and sustainable bilateral relationship.
Key Points
China-U.S. Relations and International Order Shifts since 1972
Strategic Collaboration in the Cold War Era: Under the US-Soviet bipolar structure, the nature of China-U.S. relations was a strategic collaborative relationship between a relatively defensive United States and China as a crucial third party, driven by a shared external threat from the Soviet Union. Despite vastly different institutional systems and limited social exchanges, the two nations engaged in deep strategic coordination. This was achieved through the issuance of the three joint communiqués, a blurred handling of the sensitive Taiwan question, and cooperation on military intelligence and regional affairs. In the 1980s, as China initiated reform and opening up, the original strategic collaboration was superimposed by economic and social engagement, propelling bilateral relations into a stable and positive honeymoon period.
Interdependence in the Post-Cold War Era: Amid neoliberal globalization defined by a unipolar landscape with multiple great powers, the nature of China-U.S. relations transformed into a relationship of high interdependence and mutual development between the largest developing country and the largest developed country. As the United States pursued an engagement strategy and China integrated into the international system, economic and trade relations became the ballast stone of bilateral stability. Both nations became the primary beneficiaries of globalization, significantly raising their shares of global economic output. Despite major divides over ideology, Taiwan, and the South China Sea mid-air collision, both sides derived maximum benefits because the content of their relations closely matched their nature.
Order Reshaping and Landscape Transformation in the New Era: Western skepticism toward globalization and a political shift to the right have driven a fundamental reversal of the international order, forcing a passive restructuring of China-U.S. relations. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the surge of populism and economic nationalism in the United States triggered a strategic debate that completely repudiated the engagement strategy, turning China-U.S. relations into the primary scapegoat for Western internal contradictions. Concurrently, US global strategy evolved in three stages, moving from America versus China under Trump’s first term, to the West versus China under Biden, and ultimately to America versus the whole world in Trump’s second term. Driven by the failure of domestic interest redistribution in the West, the rise of China under an alternative system, and the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, the old globalization order has ended after nine years of systemic disruption. The current deterioration of China-U.S. relations is the inevitable impact of this systemic collapse rather than a mere policy mistake.
Reconfirming the Nature of China-U.S. Relations
The international order has irreversibly shifted from a US-led liberal unipolar order to a nationalist new order under a dual-core multipolar framework, and the nature of China-U.S. relations has consequently transformed into a competitive coexistence between two independent major powers within a multipolar landscape.
Structural Characteristics of the New International Order
Ideological Shift Toward Sovereignty and Nationalism: The new order rejects the liberal logic of the old order that pursued the maximization of economic efficiency on a global scale and instead increases the analytical weight of other elements such as national security, national capacity, and civilizational identity narratives. At present, the United States pursues making America great again, China advocates for running parallel without conflict and achieving common prosperity, India strives for a developed and self-reliant vision through “Viksit Bharat@2047” and “Atmanirbhar Bharat”, Russia emphasizes its identity as a state-civilization and a sovereign center of global development, and the European Union proposes concepts such as European sovereignty and strategic autonomy. This reflects that all major power centers in the international community view their own sovereignty, security, autonomy, and identity as the fundamental starting point and ultimate destination of strategic planning.
Gradual Formation of a Dual-Core Multipolar Landscape: Although the distribution of global power centers is becoming more balanced, the relationships among these centers are being restructured, and multipolar features are highly prominent. The power of the two poles, China and the United States, occupies a relatively more vital position within this framework. This is because the economic aggregates, advanced technology research and development, such as artificial intelligence, and military expenditures of China and the United States are far greater than those of other power centers. Furthermore, the bilateral relationship exerts a driving effect on other poles, and the contradictions between the two nations constitute the primary contradiction among all poles, creating a dual-core multipolar mixed power structure beneath the basic dimension of a multipolar landscape.
Three-Stage Catalysis of U.S. Global Strategy: The formation of this landscape has undergone a nine-year evolution. The first Trump administration adopted a unilateral coercive competition strategy, attempting to maintain a hegemonic unipolarity through tariffs, technology restrictions, and hard power pressure. The Biden administration attempted to use the Ukraine crisis to promote a bipolarized and bloc-oriented organizational competition to construct a downsized version of the liberal order. It was not until 2025, when the second Trump administration launched a multi-front offensive and restructured its relationships with allies and international institutions, that the dual-core multipolar trend re-emerged. Concurrently, several factors have rendered it difficult for the United States to restore the old system, despite having the desire to do so. These include the persistence of domestic nationalism and unequal wealth distribution, the serious damage Trump’s two terms did to liberal international institutions and alliance systems, and the loss of the unprecedented economic and military advantages the U.S. enjoyed at the end of the Cold War. As a result, the shift toward a dual-core multipolar order is irreversible in the foreseeable future.
Fundamental Restructuring of the Nature of China-U.S. Relations and the Path Toward Equilibrium
Comprehensive Transformation of the Nature and Positioning of Relations: With the collapse of the old order, China-U.S. relations are no longer a profound interdependence between the largest developing country and the largest developed country in the context of globalization. Instead, the relationship has transformed into one between two major powers that are strategically independent of each other and may even lean towards opposition within a multipolar landscape.
Compatibility Conflicts of Strategic Goals: Under the previous two orders, the nature or goals of China-U.S. relations were either identical or compatible. However, after entering the new landscape in 2017, both the Trump and Biden administrations placed outcompeting China at the core of their global strategies. Although China rejects defining bilateral relations in terms of competition, it acknowledges the presence of competitive elements within the relationship. China pursues the full realization of Chinese modernization and seeks to become one of the world’s primary powers, while the United States strives to maintain its unchallenged position as the world’s most powerful pole. The collision of these grand goals has driven bilateral relations toward a highly competitive and confrontational state.
Path Choice Between Active Transformation and Passive Equilibrium: Faced with this monumental shift in bilateral relations, the content of China-U.S. relations must be restructured. On the one hand, China and the United States can actively coordinate and adjust their strategic directions to proactively establish a new equilibrium of interests through interaction, thereby transforming bilateral relations as quickly as possible - a path that is ideal but fraught with difficulties. Alternatively, they will be forced to gradually grope their way toward a new equilibrium through continuous, uninterrupted gray-zone games, frictions, and painful confrontations. Given the massive aggregates of both China and the United States, such a blind race to the bottom would not only be extremely painful but would also bring immense systemic risks and catastrophic challenges to both nations and the entire world.
Five Marginal Conditions Constraining a “Race to the Bottom” in China-U.S. Relations
Through repeated exploration, China and the United States are forming a new normal. Faced with comprehensive confrontation, both nations are rigidly constrained by five deep marginal conditions, preventing a complete race to the bottom. While neither side is fully satisfied, these constraints steer them toward a mutually acceptable state of competitive coexistence, namely, a new type of major power relations 2.0.
Mutual Assured Destruction in the Military Sphere: Traditional nuclear deterrence remains effective despite emerging technological challenges. Because a hot war would bring unbearable costs for both sides and the world, neither country will risk pushing the other toward nuclear escalation. This reality forced the United States to pragmatically seek a decent peace in its 2026 National Defense Strategy, signaling that absolute military victory is unviable and a mutually acceptable equilibrium must be pursued.
Respective Strong Resilience at the Political and Economic Levels: A decade of extreme strategic competition proves that unilaterally crushing the opponent is a strategic illusion. The United States remains powerful and technologically vibrant, while China has withstood containment, maintaining domestic unity and achieving major high-tech breakthroughs that force U.S. industry to reconsider the costs of decoupling. This mutually unbeatable reality has prompted successive U.S. administrations to declare they do not seek conflict, a new Cold War, or regime change.
Mutual Assured Disruption along Supply Chains: Decades of globalization cemented China as the global manufacturing core and the United States as the demand core, making full decoupling impossible despite ongoing sanctions. By 2025, China’s export controls over critical raw materials such as rare earths demonstrated its reverse disruption capability against U.S. industrial chains. When both actors possess the means to severely disrupt each other’s economic lifelines, their confrontation is strongly constrained by objective economic laws.
Strategic Independence of External Multipolar Actors: As the dual cores of a multipolar world, neither China nor the United States can dictate global alignment, thus hindering bloc-oriented polarization. While Europe pursues strategic autonomy and middle powers strengthen cooperation for self-preservation, the Global South adopts a posture of active non-alignment and multi-hedging, refusing to choose sides. This independent multi-alignment prevents either superpower from pulling the rest of the world into a joint race to the bottom.
Rigid Demand for Collaboration in Cutting-Edge High-Tech Governance: While traditional global governance has severely shriveled, the rise of artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping state-to-state relations. As the absolute leaders in AI, complete non-cooperation between China and the United States carries devastating global risks that far exceed traditional fields. This shared technological crisis serves as the ultimate driving force pushing both nations to abandon a race to the bottom and embrace parallel progress under competitive coexistence.
Rebalancing the Content of China-U.S. Relations
A fundamental shift in the international order and the nature of relations necessitates a profound adjustment of the content of China-U.S. relations. With 2026 serving as a crucial milestone for bilateral relations, both nations are committed to advancing a “Constructive China-U.S. Relationship of Strategic Stability” at the macro level. This implies the pursuit of an acceptable, predictable, and sustainable state of stability where both sides move toward each other and engage in deep integration, even if it is not the absolute optimal solution. To achieve this, the content of the relationship must be recalibrated across the following eight fields.
Rebalancing Strategic Perception: The logic of mutual expectation from the globalization era - where the United States expected China to Westernize and China expected the United States to accommodate its rise - has collapsed, leading to the American narrative of engagement failure and acute Chinese strategic apprehensions. The new equilibrium must shift from mutual expectation to mutual recognition. Through psychological and emotional recalibration, both sides must transition from attempting to change the other to managing coexistence. This requires acknowledging the long-term nature of each other’s institutions, values, and strategic choices, while accepting the objective reality that neither side can easily reshape or overwhelm the other.
Rebalancing Military Relations: As China’s military capacity extends toward the Western Pacific, the two militaries have transitioned from isolation to direct opposition and face-to-face standoffs, facing systemic risks of accidental friction. To operationalize the principle of non-conflict and non-confrontation amid chronic strategic mistrust, both sides should draw on U.S.-Soviet historical experience to establish rigid institutional arrangements. These mechanisms must cover military communication channels, the prevention of nuclear miscalculation, the reduction of nuclear risks, ballistic missile launch pre-notifications, and air and maritime encounter rules. Concurrently, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, unmanned warfare, and missile defense must be fully integrated into the security dialogue.
Rebalancing Economic Relations: Although the role of economic and trade ties as the ballast stone of bilateral relations has significantly declined, the new equilibrium does not mean comprehensive decoupling. Instead, both nations must preserve economic ties to the greatest extent possible under conditions acceptable to national security. In the near future, the focus lies in achieving a series of stable deliverables sequenced by difficulty through bilateral consultations in procurement, tariffs, investment, and export controls. The core of this effort lies not in the size of the yard or the height of the wall within the small yard and high wall approach, but rather in establishing the stability and predictability of the position of the wall.
Rebalancing Science, Technology, and Education Exchanges: Societal exchanges have been comprehensively securitized and disrupted, making a full return to the absolute openness of the globalization era unrealistic. Rebalancing these exchanges requires an internal consensus within each country regarding the trade-offs between benefits and risks, formulating clear, enforceable rules to secure their respective safety. Provided that government departments maintain a unified policy framework, both sides should expand connections through consultation in non-sensitive areas like study abroad, tourism, think tank dialogues, and subnational exchanges to ensure their societies maintain mutual familiarity and connectivity.
Rebalancing the Taiwan Question: As the most sensitive core issue, the Taiwan question is complicated by an American one-China policy that essentially treats the status of Taiwan as undetermined, in addition to a hollowing out of its policy that sends strategically ambiguous signals to the Taiwan authorities. Rebalancing demands from both countries makes stabilizing the situation their shared pursuit. The U.S. side needs to provide clarity regarding the Taiwan question and stop sending wrong signals, thereby creating favorable external conditions for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait as well as the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.
Rebalancing Geopolitics: The Western Pacific serves as the primary theater where China’s rising power collides with the strategic priorities of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, triggering regional polarization amid U.S. strategic contraction and domestic political unpredictability. The core of geopolitical rebalancing lies in mutually allowing adequate space and comfort for all actors. The U.S. side must view China’s military growth normally and reduce the anti-China coloration of its alliances, while the Chinese side must respect the legitimate interests of the United States in the Asia-Pacific. Concurrently, both sides should understand and accommodate the hedging strategies adopted by third-party states.
Rebalancing Major Country Interactions: Within the dual-core multipolar framework, a zero-sum approach to other power centers will accelerate bloc-oriented division and drastically increase strategic pressure on both nations. The basic principle of rebalancing is to recognize that other power centers, such as the European Union and the Global South, are independent actors possessing strategic autonomy rather than passive objects or bargaining chips. Both sides should handle relations with other poles with an open posture, refrain from viewing third parties through the prism of dual-core contradictions, avoid constructing a closed strategic triangle, and allow flexible combinations across different issues to prevent relationships among poles from being negatively locked in.
Rebalancing Global Governance: Against the background of weakened multilateral mechanisms and heightened major power tensions, the global governance deficit cannot be redressed in the short term, threatening the international community with the Kindleberger Trap due to the absence of public goods provision. In this environment, the rebalancing of global governance adopts a basic policy of selective cooperation rather than an all-encompassing framework. China and the United States should select specific areas of rigid mutual demand, such as artificial intelligence governance, international financial stability, public health, climate change, and food security, driving global governance through bilateral collaboration to send a signal of stability to the world.
Conclusion
Over the past nine years, although bilateral relations have suffered through extreme games of fierce winds and raging waves, this strategic friction has also allowed deep-seated structural factors of stability to gradually manifest. These elements, including nuclear deterrence, respective national resilience, interwoven supply chains, multipolar strategic autonomy, and the rigid demand for artificial intelligence governance, have effectively constrained a mutual race to the bottom.
At present, China-U.S. relations stand at a critical crossroads of destiny, and the future direction depends entirely on current choices. With 2026 serving as a crucial window of opportunity, the two nations must bid farewell to their nostalgia for the old order, shifting their fundamental approach from attempting to change the other to focusing on managing coexistence.
By moving toward each other across the eight pivotal fields, including strategic perception, military security, economy and trade, and the Taiwan question, and by proactively adjusting the content of bilateral relations to adapt to the new international order, it will be possible for China and the United States to weather the storm. Only through these concerted efforts can they usher in a longer cycle of a “Constructive Relationship of Strategic Stability” and ultimately forge a path toward running parallel without conflict and achieving peaceful coexistence under a “New Type of Major Country Relations 2.0”.
About the Author
DA Wei 达巍: Da Wei is the director of the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua, and Professor at the Department of International Relations, School of Social Science, Tsinghua University. Professor Da’s research expertise covers China-U.S. relations and US security & foreign policy. He has worked in China’s academic and policy community for more than two decades. He has written hundreds of policy papers for the Chinese government, and published dozens of academic papers on journals in China, the US and other countries. He was a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States from 2006 to 2007, and a Visiting Senior Associate at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University from 2008 to 2009.
ZHOU Wuhua 周武华: Ph.D. candidate in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University, primary research focus on China-U.S. relations.
About the Publication
The Chinese Version of this article was published on Contemporary International Relations（《现代国际关系》）. First established in 1981, the Contemporary International Relations (a monthly journal) is a central-level, comprehensive academic monthly publication in the field of international studies, sponsored by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. Adhering to its mission of providing high-quality services to readers across the party, government, military, academic, and business sectors to deeply understand and perceive the world, the journal strives to fully exhibit the latest and finest research achievements of experts and scholars on major international strategic issues, the global landscape, international relations theory, international economy, major hot spots, as well as vital developmental shifts in the politics, diplomacy, economy, technology, society, and military affairs of various regions and nations.
