With Trump-Xi truce, China looks to reshape Asian order
The Chinese and US heads of state met in Washington, extending a one-year trade truce first struck in Busan, South Korea (October 2025), under which China paused certain rare-earth export controls and agreed to purchase US soybeans, while the US lowered some tariffs on Chinese goods.
This was China's head of state's first state visit to the US since 2015, following an earlier 2026 meeting in Beijing that produced a statement on pursuing "constructive strategic stability" between the two countries.
Despite the truce, both sides have continued economic countermeasures against each other, including a US ban on Chinese humanoid-robot imports and Chinese controls on drone exports.
Regional commentary notes that a bilateral stabilisation between the two largest economies (sometimes termed "G2" cooperation) does not by itself restore a rules-based regional trading order for the rest of Asia, which continues to face tariff and supply-chain uncertainty independent of the bilateral truce.
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, 2013)
The BRI is a China-led connectivity and infrastructure programme launched in 2013, comprising the "Silk Road Economic Belt" (land routes across Eurasia) and the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" (sea routes via the Indian Ocean and South China Sea). It is central to how China projects an alternative regional economic order.
Key Details
- Announced in Kazakhstan in September 2013; over 150 countries and 30-plus international organisations have signed BRI cooperation agreements
- Cumulative Chinese investment/financing under the BRI since 2013 has crossed roughly $1 trillion
- India has not joined the BRI, objecting principally to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for passing through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which India regards as a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity
- Some recipient states have raised "debt-trap" concerns over BRI financing (e.g., Hambantota Port, Sri Lanka, leased to a Chinese state firm in 2017)
A stabilised bilateral relationship with the US gives China more diplomatic and economic bandwidth to expand BRI-linked connectivity and trade arrangements across Asia without an active trade dispute constraining its external engagement.
The Quad (Australia-India-Japan-US)
The Quad is an informal strategic dialogue among Australia, India, Japan, and the United States aimed at a "free and open Indo-Pacific," widely viewed as a balancing framework to China's growing regional influence.
Key Details
- Origins trace to coordination during 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami relief (the "Tsunami Core Group"); formally initiated in 2007 at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Manila, lapsed by 2008, and was revived in 2017
- Elevated to leader-level summits from 2021; cooperation spans critical and emerging technology, supply-chain resilience, maritime domain awareness, and infrastructure
- It is a dialogue/partnership, not a treaty alliance — it carries no standing secretariat and no mutual-defence obligation, distinguishing it from formal alliances
Discussions of China "reshaping the Asian order" are typically framed against the Quad as the principal multilateral counterweight; a US-China bilateral truce raises questions in the region about whether sustained US strategic attention to Quad-driven balancing will hold steady.
ASEAN Centrality and the Regional Trading Order
"ASEAN centrality" is the principle that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations should remain the primary convenor of regional economic and security architecture, rather than the region being organised solely around great-power blocs.
Key Details
- ASEAN (founded 1967, 10 members) anchors the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), effective January 2022, the world's largest free trade agreement by population, including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand
- India is not a member of RCEP, having opted out in 2019 over market-access and trade-deficit concerns
- India engages Southeast Asia through the "Act East Policy" (2014, an upgrade of the 1991 "Look East Policy") and the ASEAN-India Free Trade Area (2010)
- ASEAN states are frequently caught between US tariff actions and dependence on Chinese supply chains, making bilateral US-China arrangements consequential for economies that are not party to them
Analyses describing a US-China "G2" truce reshaping Asia reflect a structural concern that such truces are negotiated bilaterally, leaving ASEAN and other regional economies as price-takers on tariff, rare-earth-supply, and technology-export decisions that directly affect them.
- Busan trade truce: struck October 2025 in South Korea, structured as a one-year pause on some Chinese rare-earth export controls and Chinese soybean purchases, against partial US tariff relief
- Current tariff-truce component reported to expire November 10, 2026
- Cumulative BRI investment since 2013: approximately $1 trillion; agreements signed with 150-plus countries
- RCEP (effective 2022): 15 member countries, the largest FTA by population; India is not a member
- Quad revived in 2017; elevated to leader-level summits since 2021