As Trump Returns to Power, World Leaders Seek Stability With China

As they gathered this week in South America, many of the world’s leaders were engaged in a delicate diplomatic dance with President Xi Jinping of China.

Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, called for a “consistent, durable” relationship with China. Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, pledged to be “patient, calibrated and deliberate.” President Biden promised not to let “competition veer into conflict,” even as he prepared to hand power over to President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has vowed confrontation with China on tariffs.

As the United States makes a transition from Mr. Biden to Mr. Trump, presidents and prime ministers around the world are searching for stability, particularly when it comes to China. Mr. Xi, in his own remarks during a meeting in Peru, told Mr. Biden that he wanted to maintain a “stable, healthy and sustainable” relationship with the United States.

But the steadiness that the world leaders seek with China is threatened by a host of complicated issues that lingered just beneath the veneer of civility at the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, which ended on Tuesday.

Potential conflicts with China loom on human rights, the fate of Taiwan, technology competition, cyber attacks, aid to Russia and tariffs.

And for all the pomp and pleasantries as Mr. Biden wraps up a half-century on the world stage, there is deep uncertainty about the role the United States might play in heading off those conflicts.

In his last speech at the United Nations in September, Mr. Biden said the world was at “another inflection point” and added: “The choices we make today will determine our future for decades to come.”

When it comes to China, his counterparts are hoping that their choices prove to be the right ones.

“European leaders are going to be looking to Xi with this kind of, ‘Now you have got to step up,’” said John Delury, a historian of modern China. “‘Like, this is not just talk anymore. We really want to elevate this relationship so that we can count on you.’”

For his part, China’s president used the G20 summit to promote his country as a benign supporter of open trade and international stability. Chinese leaders have long offered reassuring themes in speeches to global audiences, but Mr. Xi and his advisers appear to hope that foreign leaders will be more receptive while they prepare for the strains and uncertainties of a second Trump term.

Countries should “view each other’s development as an opportunity, not a challenge, and treat each other as partners, not adversaries,” Mr. Xi told leaders at the G20 summit on Monday, according to an official Chinese account of his remarks.

But Mr. Xi also issued an implicit warning to the other leaders in attendance. While promising to abide by a commitment to “mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and winning cooperation,” the Chinese leader also said that “our position of resolutely safeguarding China’s sovereignty, security and development interests remains unchanged.”

That warning was underscored at the summit on Monday during an opening session featuring remarks by each leader. Television cameras were running when Mr. Starmer delivered his comments. But when he mentioned concerns about human rights in China and the treatment of Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong businessman and pro-democracy dissident, Chinese representatives in the large conference room moved quickly to block the view of the cameras and push journalists out of the room.

It was a reminder that diplomacy with China has often been rocky.

In the United States, Mr. Xi’s anger over Mr. Biden’s decision to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon ended most communications between the countries for more than a year.

In Australia, tensions have flared over Chinese Communist Party influence activities in Australia and deepening concerns over China’s regional ambitions. On Monday, Mr. Xi said the two countries had “witnessed some twists and turns.”

But Australia and China have resumed high-level talks and eased some concerns about tariffs in recent months, a sign that Mr. Albanese, like other leaders, is eager to find ways to maintain a working relationship. After a meeting between the two men on Monday, Mr. Albanese posted pictures on social media of them shaking hands.

“Dialogue is critical, and we’ve made encouraging progress,” he wrote. “Trade is flowing more freely. And that brings benefits to both countries, and to people and businesses on both sides.”

Washington and Beijing have also sought to ease tensions between them in the past two years. Communications have restarted between high-level diplomats and military officials in both countries. And the meeting between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi on Saturday, the second in a year, was intended to demonstrate that the leaders can work with each other.

However, Mr. Biden is a lame duck soon to be replaced by Mr. Trump. Around the world, officials are bracing for a return to Mr. Trump’s confrontational policies while eager to see if anything is different during a second term.

Mr. Trump promises to steeply increase tariffs. If he acts on those promises, he could hurt American standing abroad, even with a firm ally like Australia, by raising barriers to markets in the United States, said Richard McGregor, a senior fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute, a foreign policy think tank in Sydney.

“I think it has the potential for really damaging the image of the United States in Australia and, in turn, corroding some support for the alliance,” he said in an interview. “I don’t want to exaggerate that, but it’s corrosive to the U.S. image.”

In the meantime, Chinese policymakers are searching for diplomatic openings after Mr. Trump returns to the White House.

China’s foreign policy “will not undergo a transformative shift just because Trump takes office,” Wang Wen, the dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said in an interview. “On the other hand, Trump’s return will force Chinese foreign policy to become more flexible toward a range of countries.”

Over the past few years, Beijing has already been seeking to reduce its isolation and blunt Washington’s influence by mending ties with governments in Europe and across the Asia-Pacific region.

Mr. Xi has wooed President Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, nudging them to distance Europe from Washington. Last month, China and India announced an agreement on patrolling their shared Himalayan border, where deadly clashes broke out between their troops in 2020.

Even so, there appear to be limits on how far Mr. Xi can successfully exploit potential diplomatic openings created by Mr. Trump.

For all of Mr. Xi’s talk of open trade, foreign investors and companies often face high barriers to doing business in China. China’s surges of cheap exports were also frustrating Brazil, South Africa and other developing countries that have leaned toward Beijing. The Chinese goods were undercutting industries in their own countries and costing jobs.

“The U.S. is a much more open economy than China’s, but you wouldn’t really know it if you just listened to the two leaders because Trump always talks about protectionism and Xi always talks about free trade,” Mr. McGregor said. “Can you imagine Xi ever saying ‘tariff’ is one of the most beautiful words in the Chinese language?”

For Mr. Biden, the end of the G20 summit on Tuesday marked the conclusion of his time on the world stage, advocating on behalf of international alliances and organizations. For his counterparts, it was the beginning of a new chapter in global diplomacy that may be more focused on China than ever before.

The fate of those diplomatic efforts will probably not be known for months or even years. Mr. Delury said predictions were risky, but he added that “China is bound to disappoint its biggest cheerleaders at this moment.”