In Washington on Wednesday, Presidents Trump and Xi met face-to-face — leaders of the world's two largest economies pausing, however briefly, to look one another in the eye across the fault lines of trade, technology, and military ambition. The visit carried the weight of a relationship that has grown more competitive with each passing year, yet both men arrived knowing that even rivals must sometimes choose dialogue over drift. What they sought was not transformation, but something more modest and perhaps more durable: a shared understanding of where the edges are, and how not to stumble past