The lead editorial in China’s Global Times expresses great optimism about relations between the U.S. and China under the Trump Administration. Before Trump announced the likelihood of 10% tariffs on Chinese imports on Jan. 21, to begin Feb. 1, the English-language newspaper ran a long editorial on Jan. 22 full of praise for the improvement in relations, titled: “Building a Mature and Stable China-U.S. Relationship from a New Starting Point.”
They point to the friendly phone discussion between Trump and Xi Jinping, the attendance of Chinese Vice President Han Zheng to the inauguration (where he met with Vice President J.D. Vance, Elon Musk and Chair Emeritus of the U.S. Brookings Institution John Thornton), and notes that Trump had (at that point) refrained from declaring tariffs on China despite threats to do so earlier.
“What is certain is that as Trump begins his second presidential term, there is widespread hope for a mature and stable China-U.S. relationship,” they write. “For both countries, there is a lot of potential for various forms of cooperation; the key is whether they can meet each other halfway.... A return to rational and pragmatic policies toward China is the shared aspiration of the peoples of both China and the U.S.”