A velvet reset: Trump’s new strategy hands China breathing space

For years, Washington framed China as the defining adversary of the American century. The National Security Strategy released on December 4 has quietly abandoned that posture. At just 33 pages, the document mentions China sparingly and never as an existential threat. Instead, it treats Beijing as a major power with which the United States must reach “reciprocity and fairness” in trade.

The shift is deliberate and, from a Chinese perspective, long overdue. After a decade of being cast as the villain in successive Pentagon papers and Biden-era strategies that labelled China a “pacing challenge” and “systemic rival,” Beijing now finds itself described in language that prioritizes economic rebalancing over ideological confrontation.

This is not weakness on Washington’s part; it is realism born of exhaustion with endless confrontation and recognition that tariffs and technology bans have hurt American farmers, manufacturers and consumers as much as Chinese exporters. Beijing would be wise to pocket the concession and widen the opening before domestic politics in either capital reverses course.

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