In 2018, Chinese leader Xi Jinping argued that the world was undergoing “profound changes unseen in a century,” a concept that has since become central to Beijing's geopolitical worldview. The phrase evoked parallels to the dramatic global shifts that followed World War I, including the collapse of European empires and the reordering of international politics. Today, Beijing perceives a similar seismic transformation, this time driven by accelerating technological breakthroughs—in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing—coupled with the growing volatility in U.S. and European domestic politics, and a pronounced economic shift toward the Asia-Pacific region, largely driven by China's own rapid development.
In 2018, Xi's analysis might have looked premature. Today, his vision seems increasingly accurate. The Trump administration has launched trade wars with its key economic partners. Europe's largest conflict since World War II continues in Ukraine, with the prospect of a lasting peace fragile and uncertain. The transatlantic alliance is straining under the weight of U.S. President Donald Trump's explicit disdain for the European Union. Developments in AI and other emerging technologies, meanwhile, threaten to upend economies, societies, and geopolitical power structures in unprecedented and irreversible ways.
The question now is whether Beijing can exploit the global uncertainty to advance its interests with the United States and Europe—or if it will lose ground amid the turmoil. The U.S.-Chinese relationship, in theory, could stabilize through a “grand bargain” between Xi and Trump, which could reduce tensions on both trade and military issues.…
The remainder of this commentary is available at foreignaffairs.com.
