There is a notion circulating in Washington’s China-policy conversation ahead of Xi Jinping’s visit: China is not taking the bait. Xi is described as offering remarkably little visible reciprocity for Trump’s recent conciliatory gestures. Beijing appears content to preserve an uneasy stability, avoid unnecessary escalation, and keep its options open. The familiar explanation is that Trump can reverse himself. But the view on the ground here in Beijing points to a deeper question: What if the uncertainty is no longer just Trump—but Washington itself? What if political authority fragments? Who controls Congress after November? How durable is Trump’s hold over his own coalition? What happens if an 80-year-old president suffers a sudden health event? And if authority does begin to fragment, which commitments remain commitments of the United States—and which turn out to have belonged primarily to one president? That may be the deeper uncertainty behind Beijing’s caution. The issue is no longer simply whether Trump can be trusted to honor a deal. It is whether American political continuity itself can still be assumed. That question matters to diplomats deciding what China should concede, investors deciding how long American policy will last, and intelligence services mapping where power might move next. In May, Beijing was measuring American decline. As Xi prepares for Washington, China is measuring American continuity. My new Core Interests essay follows that question into Trump’s MAGA base, the midterms, his age, the hollowing of U.S. counterintelligence capacity, foreign intelligence mapping, and the possibility that outside actors may possess information capable of affecting the timing of a political cascade.