On a September afternoon at Joint Base Andrews, Donald Trump received Xi Jinping beneath the thunder of B-1 bombers — a ceremony that distilled, in a few deliberate minutes, the full complexity of the relationship between the world's two largest powers. Red carpets and supersonic aircraft speak different languages, yet both were chosen, and their pairing was no accident. In moments like these, nations communicate not only through words but through the weight of what they choose to display.