Gyeongju, South Korea – The trade ceasefire between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping in South Korea has left observers debating which leader came out on top.
However, there is virtually no disagreement regarding changes in the balance of power among leaders.
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Xi entered Thursday’s summit with the U.S. president in a much stronger negotiating position than his last face-to-face meeting in 2019, ending the meeting with a rare concession in the form of a partial lifting of technology-related export controls.
While President Trump and President Xi Jinping’s meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit was filled with handshakes and goodwill, the Chinese leader himself seemed to emphasize their equal status, invoking the image of two captains at the helm of a ship.
“Despite the winds, waves and challenges, we should take the right path, overcome the complex situation, and steadily move forward on the giant ship of China-US relations,” Xi said.
Dexter Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said he believes China is “now much closer to being a peer.”
“I think China has definitely increased its status and the US has decreased its status,” he told Al Jazeera.
Since President Trump launched his first trade war with China in 2018, Beijing has strengthened its economy to withstand U.S. pressure and strengthened its ability to exert its own pressure on the United States.
Shortly after the Trump administration dramatically expanded its export blacklist to thousands of Chinese subsidiaries last month, Beijing announced that companies around the world would now need permits to export products containing even trace amounts of rare earth metals.
The move signals Beijing’s willingness to use its effective clampdown on critical minerals used to make everything from smartphones to electric cars to fighter jets to protect its interests.
China controls about 70% of rare earth mining and 90% of separation and processing, raising concerns that the ban could cause catastrophic disruption to global supply chains.
“Beijing’s ability to use rare earth export controls as leverage played a decisive role in changing the balance of leverage in the negotiations,” Gabriel Wildow, senior vice president at global business advisory firm Teneo, told Al Jazeera.
“Beijing’s influence over global supply chains will serve as a check on other governments considering tariffs, export restrictions, and other coercive measures against China,” Wildau said, adding that it was unclear whether China had “intended to go on the offensive.”
China had also strengthened its hand before the summit by significantly reducing its dependence on US agricultural products, especially soybeans.
By the time China stopped buying U.S. soybeans in May amid retaliatory trade between Washington and Beijing, it had already been able to cut its share of U.S. soybean imports by more than half by turning to Brazil and Argentina.
China’s de facto trade embargo has dealt a huge blow to farmers in Midwestern states such as Iowa, Nebraska and Indiana, placing political responsibility on President Trump’s Republican Party ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Roberts, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, said China has learned to manipulate President Trump’s “nature and propensity for dealings.”
“I think they realized there was something that President Trump really wanted,” Roberts said.
“And I think the president of the United States finds legitimacy through deals, and I think China is also willing to make deals if that’s the best way to get what it wants in its relationship with the United States.
“I think they played very well all to their benefit,” he added.
Although China will resume purchasing U.S. soybeans and postpone planned export restrictions on five rare earths, while restrictions on another seven announced in April remain in place, the truce returns relations to roughly the status quo before President Trump announced devastating “Liberation Day” tariffs in April.
The only major concession that benefited China before President Trump escalated the trade war in April was the reduction of Trump’s fentanyl tariffs from 20% to 10%.
Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, said Beijing would see the deal as a “good result” and would try to use President Trump’s planned visit to China in April to “consolidate its success.”
“Trump has once again outperformed Xi in making China great again, both in terms of hyperbole and body language,” Tsang told Al Jazeera.
Jia Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said China has strengthened its power over the past decade, but it is difficult to predict which superpower will gain a decisive advantage in the escalating strategic competition.
“Last time, the United States had the upper hand in technology control. Then China found a workaround and weaponized rare earths,” Chong told Al Jazeera, referring to the abbreviation for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
“Similarly, the United States will adjust and find something else in the future. That’s how these things work.”
In China, some analysts are less ambivalent.
Wang Wen, director of the Chongyang Institute of Finance at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said the power relationship between China and the United States has changed since President Trump’s first term, and Trump’s trade war could “now be declared a failure.”
“China’s strength has forced the United States to learn to respect it,” Wang told Al Jazeera.
“Both countries have entered an era of true equality. Looking ahead, friction between the two countries will continue, but the days when the United States could unilaterally contain and suppress China are over.”
