U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s profound changes to Washington\u2019s foreign policy during the past few months have unleashed a debate about the extent to which the self-destruction<\/a> of U.S. global leadership is empowering China<\/a>. The idea that U.S. retrenchment favors a rising China has been well and amply argued. What is less clear, however, is whether Trump is paving the road to a much more fundamental shift: Chinese global dominance in place of a shattered U.S.-led order.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Washington\u2019s retreat is obvious. Trump has launched a systematic attack on the order<\/a> and institutions built by U.S. presidents since World War II to benefit U.S. interests. Washington has taken an axe to global trade, slashed funding for the United Nations<\/a>, downsized<\/a> foreign aid, and antagonized<\/a> many key allies. By hollowing out the national security apparatus, Trump risks diminishing Washington\u2019s strategic capabilities. The future of NATO and other U.S.-crafted alliances is unclear. By declaring open season on universities<\/a> and major scientific institutions, Trump may undermine the very foundation of U.S. power.<\/p>\n The discourse coupling U.S. retreat with China\u2019s advance is not new. It has gone through four distinct phases in line with the shifting balance of power, starting with China\u2019s embrace of capitalism in the 1980s. Historian Paul Kennedy pointed to China\u2019s rise and the United States\u2019 relative decline in his seminal 1987 book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers<\/a><\/em>; in the 1990s, Harvard University\u2019s William H. Overholt was the first of many arguing<\/a> that China\u2019s economic reforms would soon create another superpower.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, China\u2019s rapid economic rise throughout the 1990s and 2000s did not change the United States\u2019 status as the world\u2019s sole remaining superpower. Washington continued to pursue a grand strategy of deep engagement that promoted the liberal international order.<\/p>\n The next phase of China-rising, America-falling discourse unfolded in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, whose causes and epicenters were undeniably Western. The turmoil prompted the Economist<\/em> to declare \u201cCapitalism at Bay<\/a>,\u201d while Western capitals asked serious questions about their economic models. Beijing gained confidence in its state-driven version of capitalism, and a so-called Beijing Consensus<\/a> gained traction worldwide as an alternative to Western economic and political recipes.<\/p>\n At the time, the United States was still significantly more powerful than China, but the title of Martin Jacques\u2019s 2009 book\u2014When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Rise of a New Global Order<\/em>\u2014captured the change in mood. Working as a diplomat in Beijing at the time, I witnessed firsthand the growing self-confidence of China\u2019s Communist Party cadres\u2014and indeed, of the whole nation. Soon after the financial crisis, China\u2019s foreign policy took a more assertive turn<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a welcoming ceremony in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017.Thomas Peter \/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n A third discursive phase began in 2017. Only weeks after Trump\u2019s first inauguration in January of that year, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a new grand strategy<\/a> for China. In an address to China\u2019s National Security Work Forum, a high-level meeting convened to discuss foreign affairs, Xi set the stage for China\u2019s abandonment of its previous grand strategy, which was crafted by Deng Xiaoping in the early 1990s and called for keeping a low profile in geopolitical affairs while the country grew rich and strong. Xi\u2019s new strategy would take an active, revisionist approach to international affairs. This shift in strategy was made official<\/a> at the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress later that year. The leadership in Beijing understood that China was now emerging as a superpower on a more equal footing with the United States. Beijing\u2019s shift was reflected in an international debate over the world\u2019s return to a bipolar power structure, with the United States and China as the two superpowers.<\/p>\n The fourth and latest phase started with Trump\u2019s return to the White House this year. Critics had already argued during his first term that his \u201cAmerica First\u201d policy was a gift to Washington\u2019s adversaries<\/a>, but back then, his administration didn\u2019t really walk the talk of disengagement. This time around, Trump really is tearing apart decades of U.S. foreign policy and the power advantages that it gave the United States. If Chinese leaders sensed in 2008 that the balance of power was shifting in their favor, we can only imagine the euphoria in Beijing\u2019s corridors of power today.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The years of Washington\u2019s global primacy are over, given the new bipolar power structure. Moreover, the rise of populism, nationalism, and protectionism<\/a> in U.S. politics are the usual signs of a country in relative decline. (In fact, the current agenda of the U.S. political right is not all that different from that of the British right<\/a> in the 1890s, when the end of a global Pax Britannica came into view.) By actively and radically disengaging the United States from sustaining the global order, the second Trump administration is accelerating the power shift to China\u2019s advantage.<\/p>\n However, even a full U.S. retreat does not mean that Beijing will take over as the dominant force in world affairs. Four major reasons stand in the way.<\/p>\n First, no matter its degree of engagement, the United States is still the world\u2019s most powerful nation. It is inclined to make a serious attempt at undermining Chinese power. Trump may be pulling Washington out of global governance mechanisms, but that does not mean that the United States is preparing itself to play second fiddle. On the contrary, the United States seems bent on maintaining and potentially strengthening its power position relative to China through various policies, including tariffs; sanctions; the newly announced SHIPS Act<\/a>, intended to strengthen maritime shipbuilding; and the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act<\/a>, which aims to boost U.S. research and the manufacturing of semiconductors.<\/p>\n Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel attend the opening ceremony of China\u2019s military base in Djibouti on Aug. 1, 2017.AFP via Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Second, the nature of China\u2019s superpower status differs vastly from that of the United States and previous superpowers such as the British Empire. It is almost impossible for China to establish a global military posture on the same global scale. Even today, the United States maintains around 750 military bases<\/a> and facilities in approximately 80 foreign countries. China has a grand total of two overseas military facilities: Djibouti Support Base<\/a> in Africa and a joint logistics and training center<\/a> at Ream Naval Base in Cambodia. China certainly has an interest<\/a> in establishing more military bases abroad, but it will be a long march for Beijing<\/a> to establish anything resembling the U.S. overseas posture.<\/p>\n
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