Under the gaze of the world and amidst camera flashes, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, shook hands today in Busan for a highly anticipated meeting, the first since the businessman was sworn in as president at the beginning of this year. Later, as their 100-minute meeting in the second-largest city of South Korea concluded, Xi and Trump walked out together. They bid farewell with a handshake. The two leaders met amid growing global economic challenges and protectionist trends. Many international observers view this high-level meeting as a crucial opportunity to stabilize what many describe as the world's most important bilateral relationship and to revitalize confidence in the global economy. Since Trump took office in January, the two heads of state have maintained close communication through letters and phone calls. As Xi highlighted during the meeting, under their joint guidance, China-US relations have remained stable overall. "Facing winds, waves, and challenges," Xi said, "the two leaders must keep to the right course, navigate the complex landscape, and ensure that the great ship of China-US relations continues to sail steadily." Trump, for his part, conveyed a spirit of collaboration, stating that US-China relations have traditionally been strong and will continue to improve, expressing hope for a brighter shared future. This is not the first time Xi has used the metaphor of "recalibrating the course of the great ship of China-US relations" to emphasize the essential task facing the current bilateral relationship. In a phone call with Trump in June following a high-level China-US meeting on economic and trade affairs in Geneva, which initiated a series of subsequent bilateral economic and trade consultations, Xi emphasized that it is "especially important" for the two leaders to avoid disturbances and disruptions. "The two sides need to make good use of the existing economic and trade consultation mechanism and seek win-win results with a spirit of equality and respect for each other's concerns," Xi said at the time. Prior to the Busan meeting, the economic and trade teams of the two countries held a new round of consultations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, reaching a basic consensus on addressing their fundamental concerns, which created the necessary conditions for this Thursday's meeting. Urging the two sides to define and concrete the next steps as soon as possible, Xi stressed the need to ensure that common understandings are effectively maintained and applied, and to inject confidence into both countries and the global economy through tangible results.
"Facing winds, waves, and challenges," Xi said, "the two leaders must keep to the right course, navigate the complex landscape, and ensure that the great ship of China-US relations continues to sail steadily."
