Donald Trump’s planned 2026 trip to China marks a strategic pivot, acknowledging Beijing’s global power in a multipolar world order
IN April 2026, President Donald Trump will undertake a trip to the People’s Republic of China.Most observers view the visit as a symbolic but significant reaffirmation of China’s rise in the world order that is reshaping geopolitics today and in the short and medium-term future.
This visit comes just over 50 years after President Richard Nixon’s path-breaking visit in 1972, which was aimed at using China as an American wedge in the US escalating confrontation with the Soviet Union – at that time entering its most heated and dangerous phase.
The event and the following developments have been regarded as one of the most significant strategic pivots of the 20th century.
Although propagated to the public as a “peace mission”, it was a calculated move in realpolitik by the US, then the undoubted leader of the world order, to reshape the Cold War’s power structure and to reinforce the American position.
Today, the Trump visit comes at a time when the US has fallen from its high perch in the world order. It signals the end of the post-WWII binary world and the arrival of a multipolar era where the US must negotiate its status, especially with China, its global peer or near peer.
What changed between 1972 and 2026
At the time of Nixon’s visit, its architect, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s goal was to exploit the Sino-Soviet split. By improving relations with Beijing, he intended to pressure the Soviet Union with a possible US-China alliance.
He anticipated that the fear of being isolated would force Moscow to be more cooperative on arms control and European security. By making the US closer to China and the USSR than they were to each other, he thought this would effectively make Washington the “balancing” and dominant power.
A major immediate expectation was that China could help the US extricate itself from the war in Vietnam. Kissinger hoped that by befriending North Vietnam’s most powerful ally, the US could pressure Ho Chi Minh to negotiate a peace settlement. Chinese assurance was sought that they would not intervene further as the US began its withdrawal from the region.
Ultimately, Kissinger was a realist who believed that a country of China’s history and size could not be ignored without risking global instability. This led to the “One China” formula, where the US accepted and acknowledged the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China.
Lastly, as Nixon famously wrote, they did not want 800 million people living in “angry isolation”. Kissinger expected that bringing China out of the Western-imposed sanctions would make its behaviour more predictable and less revolutionary. That the Kissinger gambit succeeded is acknowledged by historians and critics.
Apart from its political success for the US, China was provided with the diplomatic opening, enabling its integration into the Western-dominated international order and the opportunity to undertake a meteoric economic rise that now lies at the heart of the reshaping of the global economic system.
In 1972, China, still recovering from Western and Japanese colonial pillage and the civil war that plagued it following the downfall of the Qing government, was a largely agricultural, isolated and low-income economy.
When Nixon stepped off Air Force One in Beijing, he was visiting an impoverished and in many ways undeveloped nation to gain a Cold War strategic advantage.
Today, Trump faces a transformed China that is a global economic powerhouse with the world’s second-largest economy and a leader in industry and manufacturing and the most advanced technologies.
This shift in situation and circumstance is not just a matter of degree but of kind. The core differences that confront Trump lie in economic interdependence, loss of American technological superiority and the transition from playing the China card to containing a superpower.
From economic irrelevance to total interdependence
In 1972, China was economically negligible to the US. Today, the two economies are “tethered twins”, creating a level of risk Nixon never had to calculate.
The 2026 visit follows a period of fruitless confrontation by the US. It is not about introducing China to the world but about establishing a “modus vivendi” – a way to live together without slipping into war – given that the previous 50 years of engagement failed to produce a China that the US expected to be subservient.
From economic irrelevance to total interdependence
In 1972, China was economically negligible to the US. Today, the two economies are “tethered twins”, creating a level of risk Nixon never had to calculate.
The 2026 visit follows a period of fruitless confrontation by the US. It is not about introducing China to the world but about establishing a “modus vivendi” – a way to live together without slipping into war – given that the previous 50 years of engagement failed to produce a China that the US expected to be subservient.
Diplomatic preparation vs ‘Deal-making’
Trump’s approach can be seen as equally transactional and leader-centric as Nixon’s and Kissinger’s. The difference is that the 2026 visit follows the high-pressure “Busan Summit” of 2025, where tariffs were used as a primary tool to force concessions. It is a businessman’s diplomacy that views security through an economic lens.
Russia’s role
Nixon used China to “drive a wedge” between the two major communist powers. Analysts today often discuss a “reverse Nixon” strategy, attempting to pull Russia away from China. However, unlike 1972, China is now the dominant partner in its relationship with Moscow, making the 1972 “wedge” strategy much harder to replicate.
Conclusion
Both visits represent a triumph of pragmatism. Nixon, a staunch anti-communist, shook hands with Mao Zedong. Trump, a critic of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), is engaging in high-level diplomacy to secure US interests.
Just as Nixon’s visit created a “structure of peace” to end the Cold War era’s most dangerous phase, Trump’s 2026 visit may be able to provide predictability to a relationship that has been defined by volatility and tit-for-tat escalations since 2018, resulting in an unpredictable and unsettling international order.
By scheduling a formal state visit so early in the second term, Trump has signalled that his Maga mission cannot afford to bypass or “decouple” from China. Instead, it must engage constructively and positively with Beijing as a partner. This serves as an acknowledgement of China’s role as a central player in global governance and the maintenance of peace.
The challenge for the US has evolved from geopolitical (managing a regional force) to existential (competing and working with a global peer).
Nixon feared a China that was isolated and angry. Trump’s visit reflects a new respect for a China that is integrated, wealthy and powerful enough to rewrite global rules – a China that the US needs to have, on its side if not by its side, for Americans to enjoy the “golden future” that Trump has promised.
Lim Teck Ghee’s Another Take is aimed at demystifying social orthodoxy. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
