In an extraordinary turn in global politics, US President Donald Trump emerged from his summit describing it as a “G2 meeting” — a rare and striking admission from an American leader that Washington and Beijing now stand shoulder to shoulder on the world stage.

The remark could mark a decisive shift in international relations. Even if his statement has yet to solidify into policy, it unmistakably mirrors the geopolitical reality of the present.

Trump’s boast on social media that “My G2 meeting with President Xi of China was a great one for both of our countries... everlasting peace and success” signalled top-most acknowledgement of the end of the unipolar world order long dominated by the United States.

Both leaders struck an optimistic tone at the Busan summit, heralding a potentially tactical detente after years of trade wars and tension. President Trump praised the meeting as “amazing” and lauded President Xi as a “tremendous leader of a very powerful country”, even rating their talks “a 12 out of 10” in success.

By invoking the “G2” concept, Trump implicitly seemed to have accepted what had already become reality: the post-Cold War unipolar moment, in which the US reigned as sole superpower, has reached its close, giving way to a more contested distribution of power.

Economist C. Fred Bergsten first outlined the G2 concept in 2004, envisioning it mainly as an economic framework. The idea gained traction during the 2008 global financial crisis, when China’s sweeping stimulus not only stabilised its own economy but also propped up global demand, establishing Beijing as an indispensable pillar of the world economy.

The shift did not occur overnight. Even voices in Washington concede that America’s solo supremacy was an aberration of the post-Soviet 1990s. As US Secretary of State, and a prominent conservative, Marco Rubio admitted, “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power… that was an anomaly… eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi–great powers in different parts of the planet”.

Moreover, Trump’s own Secretary of War Pete Hegseth even proclaimed that US-China ties “have never been better” after the Busan summit, touting “peace through strength, mutual respect and positive relations”.

Such language of “mutual respect” and parity marks a dramatic departure from the era of American “sole superpower” triumphalism. It strikingly hews closer to how China itself frames major-power relations.

For much of the past decade, Washington viewed China through a confrontational lens. Trump’s own first term was defined by a trade war, blunt rhetoric about China as a threat and attempts to “decouple” critical technologies.

However, the mixed results of those policies may have prompted a recalibration. Beijing proved more resilient than expected as it responded to tariff pressure by doubling down on openness to other partners and upholding the global trading system, countering US protectionism by working with other countries to shore up the WTO and multilateral trade

Detente in a Multipolar Era

A lasting accommodation between the US and China is a question of global stability. Together, the two nations make up around 40 per cent of the world’s GDP, command the largest military budgets and anchor the frontiers of technology and innovation.

However, their rivalry in recent years has cast a long shadow over global growth and security.

Easing this tension would bring immense gains. Both countries have a shared interest in ing a modus vivendi and a practical coexistence that keeps peace and prosperity intact.

Experts note it will not be easy and uncertainty will remain as many thorny issues remain unresolved, but the greater danger lies in refusing to try.

History’s warnings are unambiguous. From the outbreak of World War I to the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cold War, great-power clashes have produced devastation far beyond what any leader foresaw. In today’s nuclear-armed and deeply interdependent world, a war between Washington and Beijing would be catastrophic — shattering economies, destabilising nations and endangering millions of lives.

By one count, 12 out of 16 such power transitions in the past five centuries ended in bloodshed. Political scientists refer to this risk as the “Thucydides Trap”.

However, Last year, President Xi Jinping stressed that the Thucydides’ Trap was not a historical inevitability.

“It is important to have a correct strategic perception,” President Xi had said when meeting with the then US president Joe Biden on the sidelines of the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, Peru.

A new Cold War should not be fought and cannot be won, he said, adding that containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail.

Aside from preventing war, pragmatic cooperation between Beijing and Washington can yield global benefits across a range of issues. Economically, if the two largest markets work in tandem — or at least stop trying to undermine each other — they can anchor global financial stability and growth.

At their Busan meeting, Presidents Trump and Xi reportedly reached agreements on fentanyl precursors, rare earth minerals and increased Chinese purchases of US farm goods. These are modest but tangible steps toward easing friction and rebuilding trust.

Analysts note that ending the trade war and tech disputes would remove major drags on global growth. As China resisted unfair terms and held its ground, it now stands better positioned to drive the world’s economic recovery, a gain not only for China, but for all.

No major global challenge can be addressed without US-China cooperation.

On climate change, as the world’s two largest carbon emitters, both must collaborate to achieve meaningful progress on emissions, clean energy and international accords, as they did ahead of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The same applies to pandemics, nuclear non-proliferation and regional stability from the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East. Covid-19 showed how shared data and joint research, however delayed, ultimately accelerated vaccine development. Future health crises will demand even closer coordination.

A stable US-China understanding would also temper the rising “bloc” mentality that forces others to take sides. Many in the Global South reject a zero-sum great-power rivalry and seek a balanced order allowing trade and development with both Beijing and Washington.

When the two cooperate, smaller states gain space for growth, a vision central to President Xi’s initiatives for global peace and development.

To sustain such an arrangement, multilateral institutions must be strengthened. A genuine multipolar detente would see both powers reinforcing the United Nations, G20 and World Trade Organisation, rather than bypassing them. China’s vision already champions UN authority and collective governance of global affairs.

For Trump, embracing multipolarity may defy instinct, but as the Busan summit showed, pragmatism can yield results.

In implementing these steps, Trump would actually be reviving a strain of realistic statecraft not unlike that of Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Although Kissinger is a controversial figure, his opening to Mao’s China was grounded in pragmatic acceptance of geopolitical realities.

The recognition of multipolarity is reminiscent of the balance-of-power diplomacy of past eras, updated for the 21st century. The key difference now is the level of interdependence