Trump on China: speak loudly and carry a tiny stick
Xi’s China is so far defying gravity. Despite its history of despotic autocratic party rule, Xi has managed to govern in a way that has promoted economic strength while projecting international resilience. Xi has kept his eye on the ball, while Trump has kept one eye on the mirror and the other on Fox News, appointing loyal incompetents and relying on party subservience to mask the consequences. “ While strategists in Washington debate whether China has peaked, their counterparts in China are having an analogous debate about the United States—and reaching strikingly similar conclusions. China’s state media has diagnosed the United States with “hegemonic anxiety,” suggesting that Washington cannot cope with the possibility that it must face a multipolar world. And whereas U.S. thinkers such as Hal Brands have argued in their analyses of China that a power that has peaked is likely to lash out in violent ways, Chinese observers independently conclude that it is Washington that...