The Duellists. Crisis Management Disguised as Normalisation

A quick primer on Thursday’s ASEAN meeting

Grüezi!

Don’t believe the hype. Last week’s Malaysia talks prevented an immediate US-China collapse before Thursday’s Xi-Trump summit, but they solved absolutely nothing fundamental in the toxic relationship.

This is all the diplomacy necessary to get two leaders through a handshake without embarrassment. To find out why, just check the gap between what Washington claims happened and what Beijing says happened.

Bessent is doing a media victory lap, trotting out a ‘very successful framework’ that’s ‘substantial’ and ‘far-reaching.’ TikTok is ‘finalised’ with ‘all the details ironed out.’

Meanwhile, Beijing’s readout talks about ‘basic consensus’ (基本共识) and ‘preliminary understanding’ (初步共识), with everything subject to ‘respective domestic approval procedures’ – which is diplomatic code for ‘we haven’t actually agreed on anything binding yet.’

One of these delegations isn’t telling the whole truth to its domestic audience. Possibly both. Let’s dig a little deeper!