The new Cold War is already here

Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping exposed the deeper reality now reshaping global affairs: America and China are increasingly operating within conditions resembling a new Cold War — driven by military power, economic leverage, competing technological ambitions and irreconcilable visions for world order. The summit managed tensions. It did not resolve them.

Even as Trump emphasized friendship, trade and “fantastic deals” on the return flight to Washington, Xi was framing the relationship in terms of historic rivalry and potential conflict. That asymmetry is now one of the defining takeaways from Beijing.

Xi effectively told the United States: we prefer cooperation, but on Taiwan we will not bend. The summit also demonstrated that Washington and Beijing remain deeply divided over Iran, despite public statements suggesting alignment. Xi told Trump privately that China would not provide Iran military equipment and wanted the strait reopened, but offered no concrete plan and no public commitment. Thus, the summit produced “few wins” on Iran.

To his credit, Trump achieved one immediate objective: preventing the summit from deteriorating into open hostility. His personal diplomacy reduced short-term tensions and preserved direct communication between nuclear powers managing simultaneous crises over Iran, Taiwan and the global economy. Washington and Beijing are now practicing what might be called managed rivalry — competing intensely while working to prevent direct conflict.

The real struggle extends far beyond trade. It encompasses semiconductor dominance, rare earth minerals, cyber operations and control of the computing infrastructure that will define the next generation of military power. The presence of Nvidia’s Jensen Huang symbolized the contest for computing dominance. Both governments understand that whoever leads in advanced machine-learning systems and computing infrastructure will hold military and geopolitical advantages for decades to come. The new Cold War is already here. The summit proved it.