By Bang Xiao, ABC News
US President Donald Trump shakes hands with China’s President Xi Jinping.
Analysis: For nearly a decade, the world has braced for a collision. The dominant United States and a rising China, locked in escalating strategic competition, were said to be hurtling towards a 'Thucydides Trap' that history suggested would be almost impossible to avoid.
This week in Beijing, both Donald Trump and Xi Jinping quietly admitted something the rest of the world has been slow to grasp. Neither of them can afford the collision.
The summit produced no breakthrough trade deal, no joint statement, no big announcement on Taiwan. And yet what it delivered may turn out to be more consequential than any of those things. The public outline of a new global order.
