After meeting with China’s top diplomat in Malaysia last summer, Secretary of State Marco Rubio uttered a line that made few waves at the time but would later help pave the way for an abrupt change.
The United States and China, Mr. Rubio said, had an “opportunity here to achieve some strategic stability” and find areas of cooperation. He used the phrase again in February while talking about China in the Caribbean, also to little notice.
Chinese officials picked up on Mr. Rubio’s remarks and suggested to their U.S. counterparts even rosier language to describe ties between the two nations, according to two people with knowledge of the previously unreported diplomacy.
The new phrase — “constructive strategic stability” — was rolled out by both governments during President Trump’s meeting in Beijing last month with the leader of China, Xi Jinping.
Although the language sounds stiff and somewhat vague, such diplomatic terms serve as important guideposts. The new catchphrase signals to agencies in both nations, and to other powers, that the United States and China — the world’s two largest economies and most powerful militaries — are looking to work together or limit hostilities, notably on trade and Taiwan.
Mr. Trump’s new policy with Beijing has stirred questions and anxieties across Asia, from Taipei to Delhi to Manila, sending officials in the region scrambling to recalibrate their own approaches to the United States and China.
