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Ningrong Liu

While US-China relations are likely to warm in 2026 and US President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy strikes a comparatively softer tone, the long-term trajectory of the two nations’ rivalry remains irreversible. Strategic competition will only intensify, focusing ever more on economic and security issues in the Pacific Rim.
Notably, the Pentagon’s call for a major US military overhaul centred on the Pacific Rim could raise the risk of security confrontation. This dynamic will further accelerate the geopolitical shift of influence from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
US-China relations in 2026 are expected to be relatively stable. With two summit meetings scheduled – one in Beijing in April and another possible in mid-December at the Group of 20 summit in Florida – and the US midterm elections in November, the volatile Trump administration is likely to avoid risking ties with China to safeguard Republican electoral wins.
Adding to this summit-driven optimism, Washington’s 2025 National Security Strategy adopts a more moderate tone. It recognises China’s evolution from one of the poorest countries to a “near-peer” competitor and reclassifies it from being a strategic competitor to an economic rival, prioritising economic competition over direct geopolitical confrontation.
However, the rhetorical softening does not signal a fundamental shift in US-China strategic competition. Far from smoothing relations, this approach focuses on shoring up America’s economic foundation – rooted in the principle that economic security is fundamental to national security – while bolstering Pacific Rim security architectures. Indeed, it reflects a shift to a “pragmatic containment” strategy.
This explains China’s official indifference to concepts such as the “G2” – which garnered global attention after Trump framed his South Korea summit with President Xi Jinping in those terms – and the proposed “C5”, or “Core Five”, which was reportedly outlined in the National Security Strategy’s longer, unpublished version, and would include the United States, China, Russia, Japan and India.


On the economic front, Trump’s updated strategy pledges to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China, prioritising reciprocity and fairness to restore American economic independence”. In practice, this means Washington will continue and even double down on decoupling, cut reliance on Chinese supply chains for autonomy and erect a firewall against China in critical hi-tech sectors.
Trump’s strategic contraction aims to regroup and regain an edge, aligning closely with his “America first” goal of maximising US interests and avoiding distractions from non-core issues. By reframing the rivalry around economic strength rather than ideological conflict, the US is not abandoning competition but refocusing it to better advance core national interests.
Trump’s strategy echoes president Richard Nixon’s strategic contraction in the 1970s. While Nixon sought to ease tensions with China to extricate the US from Vietnam and counter the Soviet Union, Trump’s “America first” approach prioritises disengagement from military interventions and a turn to protectionism.
Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China broke the ice in US-China ties. Fifty years later, as the Covid-19 pandemic ebbed in 2022, the two nations formally entered a phase of decoupling. This half-century arc marks a definitive end to the era of engagement and the dawn of a new age of great-power competition which might also last half a century.


On security, while Trump no longer actively pushes for a new Cold War, the underlying risk of strategic conflict persists. This tension is fuelled by the shared recognition in Washington and Beijing that an “Asian century” is unfolding, shifting the central theatre of competition to the Pacific Rim.
The US has gradually sidelined western Europe’s traditional role, instead prioritising the western hemisphere to secure regional dominance and contain China’s influence within the first island chain in the western Pacific. It is weighing a major overhaul: merging Northern and Southern Commands into a single US Americas Command while consolidating the Central, European and Africa Commands under a new US International Command.
Notably, the US Indo-Pacific Command would stay intact, underscoring the enduring focus on the Pacific theatre. This explains India’s inclusion alongside Pacific Rim powers in the proposed “C5” grouping, a move to boost US strategic leverage in counterbalancing China’s rise.
Trump’s refocus of US strategy to the Americas effectively revives the Monroe Doctrine, with its key adversary shifting from 19th-century European powers to a rising Eastern power. Washington’s pledge to contain “non-hemispheric competitors” is essentially a commitment to exclude Chinese influence from the region.


Even as Washington contracts its global footprint, Trump has not ruled out military force to oust Venezuela’s government. Latin America is increasingly being pressed to choose between China and the US.
Meanwhile, Washington will uphold its security commitments in the western Pacific. While the document avoids an explicit security guarantee for Taiwan, the new strategy clearly prioritises the first island chain, singling out Taiwan and the South China Sea as focal points. It further urges US allies to raise defence spending to enhance deterrence; notably, Washington shifts sole responsibility by pressing Japan and South Korea to assist in Taiwan’s defence.
More importantly, the US strategic pivot to the Pacific Rim has a profound implication: it is accelerating a fundamental shift in global power. History is tipping decisively towards an “Asian century”.
This pivot marks the closing chapter of the Atlantic era. This era began in the late 15th century as European navigators opened new sea routes, flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries while fuelled by republican and liberal ideals, and solidified after World War II under the US-Europe alliance that anchored the Western-led order. Today, US strategy is hastening the shift from this Atlantic epoch to a Pacific one, with US-China competition as the primary driver.


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America’s strategy is hastening the geopolitical change of influence from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with US-China competition the primary driver


America’s strategy is hastening the geopolitical change of influence from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with US-China competition the primary driver.


Donald Trump’s China policy

Taiwan

South China Sea

Donald Trump

Richard Nixon

The Pentagon (US Department of Defence)

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Trump’s pivot puts Pacific Rim at heart of global power shift

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}America’s strategy is hastening the geopolitical change of influence from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with US-China competition the primary driver

America’s strategy is hastening the geopolitical change of influence from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with US-China competition the primary driver