In late September, senior American and Chinese officials gathered in New York for five days of structured dialogue on the questions that will most define the coming decade: how artificial intelligence should be governed, how two deeply entangled economies can manage their rivalry, and who controls the minerals that power the technologies of the future. The meetings, led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Bessent, were less a resolution than a reckoning — an acknowledgment that even competing powers must sometimes sit across the same table. What happens in rooms like th