The author writes:

• Absent a sharp divergence from current trends, when 2023 ends in two months, the facts will show that China’s economy grew twice as fast as the US. Similarly, as the US has become more entangled in supporting Ukraine’s war against Putin’s aggression and Israel’s response to Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7, China has joined most of the rest of the world in advocating for an end to the bloodshed and calling for negotiations. As China’s state-run People’s Daily put it recently: “the balance of global power is trending towards a rising east and a falling west; a rising south and a falling north.” In Xi Jinping’s words, “the more difficult the moment, the more confident we must be.”
• As surely as Teddy Roosevelt led the United States into what he was certain would become an “American century,” Xi is similarly confident that the 21st century will belong to China. He is determined to lead China past its “century of humiliation” at the hands of Western powers into a new era of Chinese greatness. Long before President Trump raised the MAGA banner, Xi had proclaimed that the time had come to make China great again: in his words, the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” He foresees China displacing the US as the predominant power in the Asia-Pacific during his reign (which he expects to last until at least 2035), and, in time, perhaps, the world.
• Biden and his national security team know that the US has been the world’s leading power for the decades since World War II—and are determined that it remain so. They are proud of the international order the US has built that has allowed the world to experience an unprecedented “long peace” of 78 years and has enabled citizens in both the US and the world to enjoy greater increases in their incomes, health, and standard of living than in any similar period in recorded history. And they are determined to do all they can to ensure this continues. Thus, in relations with China, Biden’s objective is to shape the conditions in which this rivalry between America’s democracy and China’s Party-led autocracy can play out peacefully over the decades to come—without falling into the trap that has so often ensnared Thucydidean rivals in unintended war.

Read the full article on The National Interest website.

The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author. Photo by the White House shared under a United States government work licence.