Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

Tomorrow, President Donald Trump arrives in Beijing for the first U.S. presidential visit to China in nearly nine years. The agenda, which covers trade, the future of the bilateral relationship, and more, reads like a syllabus for the U.S.-China Student Dialogue. Reflecting on my recent conversations with Tsinghua students, I am particularly appreciative of the opportunity to discuss nuclear strategy, the future of the bilateral relationships, and the broader question of whether U.S.-China competition is truly zero-sum with students on the other side of the globe who are just as passionate as I am about these topics. The discussions on the future of the U.S.-China relationship helped me look beyond the binary of a dominant perspective that portrays the U.S.-China rivalry as a clash of ordering principles. Hearing my Chinese peers articulate the logic behind their perspective helped me consider how much strategic mistrust between the two countries stems from a failure of imagination, rather than from a structural problem as is often portrayed. These ideas are top of mind as I await the outcome of the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting.

As an international politics major with a concentration in international security, I came into the U.S.-China Student Dialogue with exposure to multiple academic perspectives on China: I had considered deterrence theory and the security dilemma in Military Security in World Politics, competing territorial claims and soft power in Geostrategic Competition in the Pacific, and regional strategy in Geopolitics of Central Asia. By the time our cohort met with the Tsinghua University students over Zoom, I thought I had a reasonably clear analytical picture of the U.S.-China relationship and both countries’ respective roles in the world. However, the dialogues helped me revise that framework by clarifying what my classes, research, and most media portrayals of the relationship have left out.

Though we did not always reach consensus, I was most struck by how both the Georgetown and Tsinghua students were genuinely curious about both sides and felt a sense of responsibility that extended beyond our own national interests. I am incredibly grateful to both Georgetown and Tsinghua for creating the space for that kind of exchange, and to the Tsinghua students who engaged with honesty and openness across every session. As a School of Foreign Service student who had previously studied this relationship primarily through the remove of policy papers, I am looking forward to continuing the human side of these conversations in person in Beijing and Hong Kong, where I hope we can model, in some small way, what U.S.-China collaboration can still look like. As I prepare to travel to Beijing and Hong Kong at the same time as this historic presidential meeting, I expect the news cycle to report on tangible deliverables from the visit, such as trade concessions, joint statements, and symbolic wins. However, after the U.S.-China dialogue sessions, I am more curious about whether the two leaders can build the kind of mutual legibility that will prevent miscalculation on both sides.

Anahita Asudani (SFS'27) is a student at Georgetown University studying international politics with a minor in international security.