As I’ve been pointing out for the last few years now, the USA is no longer a global superpower. It’s now been demoted to major regional power, which is very far from nothing, but its pretensions at pursuing elite interests in the name of playing global policeman are observably over:
Last week’s Trump-Xi summit produced no dramatic declaration or historic treaty – yet its importance may prove far greater than any immediate deliverable. What happened in Beijing was not a breakthrough in policy but a breakthrough in recognition: the United States openly acknowledged China as an equal center of global power. That alone marks a historic turning point.
For decades, American administrations approached China from the assumption that Beijing was either a manageable challenger or a state that would eventually integrate into a US-led international order on American terms. The summit suggested something fundamentally different.
US President Donald Trump appeared compelled to recognize that China is no longer simply a rival great power but a central pillar of the emerging world order – one that Washington can neither isolate nor overpower. This was the true message of the summit.
Neither Washington nor Beijing expected immediate breakthroughs. The summit was never realistically supposed to solve structural tensions overnight. Its purpose was to stabilize relations between two powers which are increasingly aware that prolonged escalation has become prohibitively costly. The talks reflected the reality that the US now needs stable engagement with China as much as China needs stable engagement with the US. This mutual dependency is perhaps uncomfortable, but it is also unavoidable – neither full confrontation nor full separation is sustainable anymore.
For years, the Americans described China as a revisionist actor seeking to overturn the international order. But the Beijing summit demonstrated something more consequential: the international order itself is already changing. Many countries have begun treating China not merely as a competitor to the US, but as a parallel – and in some respects superior – center of global gravity.
The post-WWII international order is now over. Clown World is still scrambling to control what it can, but it is in disarray. Which means these will continue to be interesting and tumultuous times.