The Trajectory After The Xi Jinping State Visit to Washington

Sept. 27, 2026 (EIRNS)—The paid nitwits in the Western media have predictably sounded off for the last 48 hours about how the Trump-Xi meetings were “all sizzle and no steak,” “pageantry and not substance,” “rich in pomp but failed to resolve tensions,” and on and on.

In addition to being nitwits, such commentators are epistemologically oblivious to the existence of trajectories in human history, as in the physical universe. From that standpoint, two things stand out about the Sept. 23-25 state visit, which interestingly are the two first points emphasized in both the White House and the Chinese readouts:

1. The two sides agreed to build “a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability on the basis of respect, fairness, and reciprocity,” Xinhua reported. President Xi explained this means that China and the U.S. are “partners, not rivals”—the same expression adopted by Xi and Indian Prime Minister Modi in their recent talks—and that a win-win approach is possible, thereby avoiding the infamous Thucydides Trap.

This is not “sizzle;” it’s a concept—a concept which admittedly is at odds with most of the Trump administration’s current foreign and economic policies, which are centered on imposing the law of the jungle, rewarding speculation, “annihilating” countries and civilizations the U.S. dislikes, and ensuring that the mantra “to the victors, the spoils” prevails. But that is exactly why London is so jittery about the Xi-Trump relationship and where it might be heading.

1. “China and the United States support each other in successfully hosting the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting and the G20 Summit. The two heads of state intend to attend each other’s meetings.”

This is the trajectory part of the picture. The APEC summit will be held in Shenzhen, China on Nov. 18-19, and Trump and Xi are scheduled to meet there. Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated that it is likely that he will also attend, since Russia is a member of APEC. A number of people have floated the idea of the “Big Three” holding a meeting in Shenzhen. The Schiller Institute’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche has repeatedly called for such a summit to urgently address the danger of nuclear war facing the planet. On Aug. 19 of this year, she joined other leading international peace activists in issuing an “Appeal to Pope Leo XIV To Organize a Global Leaders Summit To Address the Questions of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament.”

The Pope—or certainly his insistence on Paul VI’s policy that “development is the new name of peace”—would be a welcome addition to the deliberations in Shenzhen.

Then on Dec. 14-15, the United States will host the 2026 G20 Miami Summit at the Trump National Doral Miami resort in Doral, Florida. Xi Jinping will be there. Russia is also a member of the G20, but Putin’s attendance is still considered a long shot. However, that decision may well be shaped in large measure by what happens at APEC.

As Helga Zepp-LaRouche summarized the point in her remarks to the 173rd consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition on Sept. 25: “Hopefully, this state visit [by Xi Jinping] will turn out to be a change in the relationship between the United States and China. As Xi Jinping said, this visit would not [by itself] solve any problem in the world, but many problems in the world cannot be solved without the two largest economies working together. And once these two settle their basic relationship, it would filter down to all the other regional crisis points in the world.”

A series of highly-significant upcoming national elections—in Brazil (Oct. 4), Israel (Oct. 27), the U.S. (Nov. 3), and South Africa (Nov. 4)—will also be shaped by that trajectory, and will in turn help shape it in decisive ways.