context: Xi Jinping 习近平 held a phone call with US President Donald Trump on 4 February 2026. On the same day, Xi held a virtual meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This followed a flurry of foreign leaders visiting Beijing throughout January, including South Korea's Lee Jae Myung, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Gao Zhikai 高志凯 Centre for China and Globalisation vice president commented on Xi Jinping's 习近平 latest calls in an interview with Guanchazhe. He makes two observations
- these two leaders' dialogues were held almost 'back-to-back', so there is reason to believe that the matters discussed by the PRC, Russia and the US are of major significance to all three parties
- in the dialogue between Xi and Trump, Xi repeatedly emphasised the importance of the Taiwan issue
Gao speculated that the calls also very likely addressed
- potential US military action against Iran
- curbing the emergence of new fascism and militarism in Japan
Gao stressed
- the PRC and Russia stand 'back-to-back' and 'shoulder-to-shoulder', with highly consistent positions on many major international issues
- as for PRC–US relations, the two countires have achieved equality of status, and Washington is no longer able to negotiate with Beijing from a position of strength
- the US doesn’t dare to act too recklessly towards the PRC
- it is more likely to create trouble through proxy wars and other relatively covert and objectionable means
- at the level of full-scale conflict, the US no longer possesses the capability to confront the PRC head-on and is aware that once a full-scale war with the PRC breaks out
- it has no guarantee of victory
- at best it would result in mutual destruction
- in some localised areas (across the Taiwan Strait, in East Asia) the US might even suffer defeat