The Chinese Century
Trump’s Beijing trip only revealed American decline
When Trump lumbered up the steps of Airforce One to return to the US, he believed his China summit had shown him to be the man of his imagination, a titan bestriding the global stage. That’s because this crass, unintelligent narcissist was incapable of seeing what the rest of the world saw.
He was played from the moment he landed in Beijing.
A cannier, cleverer organ grinder had him dancing for the entertainment of all the countries China wishes to influence. Which is everyone.
President Xi Jinping orchestrated a lavish display that was designed only to flatter Trump’s shallow ego so he would give the exact responses Xi required. And Trump obliged at every step. The orchestra played the Village People, the banquet was shaped for Trump’s blunt tastes. Red carpets and gun salutes. Trump basked, Xi smiled.
The messaging was too clever by half for Trump, but everyone watching knew. When Trump got dewy-eyed at his reception from a crowd of cheering children, he saw only adulation. The entire world knows he is a paedophile and took a very different commentary.
At every step of the way Trump was made to look feeble for the cameras. On a tour of the heavily-guarded Zhongnanhai where China’s elite live, Trump needily asked if any other leader had been given that courtesy. Xi said, “Only a few.” “Good. I like it,” Trump gushed. Everyone knew plenty of leaders had been there, including Putin.
Trump took an entourage of tech business leaders to back him up, including, ridiculously, the movie director Brett Ratner of all people, who has been accused by several women of rape and sexual abuse (which he denies). Trump, in his shallow way, thought all this would give him clout. I repeat, Brett Ratner.
China, however, had only one real aim from the summit and the Foreign Ministry said after the first bilateral meeting that it was the most important issue: Taiwan. America needs to keep out of the way of what China wants or there will be conflict ahead.
We have no idea what was discussed behind closed doors. Trump may have thrown Taiwan to the wolves in exchange for some enriching, and Trump’s comments to journalists on the return trip on Airforce One suggested this may have been the case. He wouldn’t confirm that he was stopping arms sales to Taiwan — a Chinese demand — and he said he wouldn’t tell Xi if the US would defend Taiwan if it was attacked. Diplomats fear he may also have privately signalled no US support for Taiwan independence.
We do know that he came out of the summit with no obvious wins. A few trade deals, Boeings and beans, all agreed in advance. Nothing real to show for his effort. Xi however got the world to see that the power dynamic had shifted massively in China’s favour. The leader of what was once the unrivalled power on the planet came to Beijing fawning and scraping and saying how great China was and left with nothing.
Xi got all that he wanted.
And while this is a bitter pill to swallow for the millions of Americans who oppose Trump, across the rest of the world the President *is* America, a symbol that defines the nation. And why wouldn’t that be the case? Americans chose him. And what this symbol communicates is: This is it? This is the best you can do?
Xi knows this. When the world sees a grasping, erratic, venal, low intellect standing next to a dignified, calm leader and they ask who would we like to partner with, there’s only one answer.
For all its flaws, its human rights issues, its espionage and authoritarianism, China looks reliable, the US does not. China looks like the future, the US looks like the past.
No empire lasts forever. The lessons of thousands of years of history show us that even a world-beating military and economic force like Rome will at some point reach a tipping point that pitches it into decline. It’s part of the human condition to think that the situation you’ve lived through all your life is the unshakeable norm. It’s only in the side mirror that the truth is revealed. Now that view is falling into relief and it’s closer than it appears.
Empires don’t collapse overnight. They rot away. But the signs are the same for all empires throughout history:
The rise of demagogues over institutions
Laws applied unevenly or ignored
Extreme wealth concentration
Debt spirals and currency debasement
Expanding commitments without matching resources
Endless wars with diminishing returns
Polarisation and internal tribalism
Elites adopting radically different lifestyles from the general population
Bureaucracies becoming inefficient or corrupt
An inability to respond to crises — natural disasters or pandemics
Elite overconfidence and denial — “collapse can’t happen here”
Doubling down on failing strategies
And, importantly:
Rising competing powers
For the last decade China has been soaring. BYD is now one of the largest electric vehicle manufacturers in the world. CATL is the world’s largest EV battery maker. China has built the world’s largest high-speed rail system, connecting most major cities with trains up to 350 km/h. China dominates solar panel manufacturing and deployment and has invested massively in wind, hydro and grid tech, driving down the cost of renewables. TenCent is the world’s largest gaming company.
It’s made rapid advances in smart cities, logistics automation and AI, thanks to strong state backing.
And, significantly, at a time when the US has been burning bridges across the world, China has quietly been building stable partnerships, not just in the Global South, but also in Europe, which will help sustain its growth and power into the future.
Recognition of the changing power dynamic came, bizarrely, from Trump himself in a Truth Social post where he admitted Xi had referred to America as a declining nation. China would never have dared do this before, but it was voiced because it is the truth. Trump showed it was true in that same Truth Social post which was a pathetic “I’m not owned!” cry where he pretended Xi was talking about the Biden years, not his own stewardship.
Embarrassing. The world saw and nodded along with Xi.
The good news for Americans is that the future is unwritten. Decline and collapse is not a foregone conclusion. But it won’t be solved through politics, simply electing a replacement President. The requirement is to tackle the corrupting issues in the very core of American society that allow a man like Trump to rise to the top.
That’s incredibly hard, a root and branch rethink, but it’s the only way out. If it’s not met head-on, there will now be a steady progression of other Trumps leading the country to the edge of the abyss.
Next I watched Barack Obama campaigning with James Talarico. That gave me some hope!
Overall, an incisive piece that illuminates the decline of the US, and the rise of China. However, I'm not sure that in the present day the list of the characteristics of declining empires all apply. The ending of the most recent global empire, the British Empire, which probably began in the early decades of the 20th Century, and was obvious with the independence of India after WW2, did not share all the features you list. I would suggest that the growth of the middle class, which began in the 19th Century in the UK, softened the socio-economic divisions you highlight. It is the shrinking of that same middle class that is taking place in the US, as its empire, always one of economic domination rather than colonisation, declines. China's own rise as an empire is characterised not by colonisation, but by economic and political control of individual state governments. The Chinese colonisation of East Africa is such; very different from the former imperial control by Britain, which directly controlled the political processes. China is happy to leave states a degree of self-government, so long as they do what China says on the international stage. If you look at the central governing of China itself, you see the same degree of an overall central control, but with a strong degree of devolution to individual regions, cities, or business enterprises. The world changes, and the methods of imperialism or world domination change also.