Oct. 3—Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Sept. 23-25 state visit to Washington offered an impressive display of friendship and good-neighborliness between the world’s two largest economies. After having hosted U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing earlier this May, President Xi received an equally honored reception in the United States, his first trip to the country in more than 10 years. President Trump even met Xi on the runway at Joint Base Andrews—the first time a sitting President has met an arriving foreign leader at the airport since 1962.

While many in the Western media have been quick to declare that the meeting was “all show and no substance,” the reality is more nuanced. As is well known, President Trump has been presiding over a brutal and dangerous turn toward the worst sort of beastman tactics with regard to Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, Greenland, and many other locations across the globe. Trump has also made clear that his aggression is not only directed against those nations themselves, but is specifically aimed at those nations accused of opposing Western hegemony in favor of a new paradigm—namely, Russia, China, and the other BRICS nations. China’s leadership is certainly not blind to this reality and the dangerous implications it has for any relationship with the United States.