China Wagers America Is Retreating From the World
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- China views America's post-2016 disengagement from institutions like the UN and WTO as a deep structural shift, not merely a Trump phenomenon, seeing a United States grown "selfish" and tired of international affairs.
- The 2004 book "The New Warring States Period" by strategists Wang Jian, Wang Xiangsui, Qiao Liang, and Li Xiaoning forecast that US debt burdens and corporate capture of policy would produce decades of state-to-state friction after the collapse of the American-led order.
- China does not aim to replace the US-led order but to "survive the destruction of the American-made world and emerge stronger," adopting a patient wait-and-see posture while protecting itself from external chaos.
- Iran is described as a failing state of nearly 100 million people where Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is gone, his son Mojtaba Khamenei's role is unclear, and the Revolutionary Guards hold power without rebuilding political unity — bringing chaos to China's doorstep.
- The Turkey-Saudi Arabia-Pakistan defense pact is identified as a setback for Israel that demonstrates America cannot manage Iran and is already coalescing anti-Chinese sentiments across Asia.
- North Korea's nuclear rearmament, now linked to Russia, is spurring Japan and South Korea to consider their own nuclear weapons — developments contrary to Beijing's interests and creating pressure on China's regional strategy per analyst Zheng Jiyong.
Why it matters: Beijing's strategic patience assumes American decline; the article counters that US power may be reorganizing, not collapsing — visible in expanded US influence in Venezuela and Syria — and warns that waiting through the 2026 US midterms and Beijing's own party congress leaves China exposed to the Turkey-Saudi-Pakistan pact and North Korea-driven Asian nuclear pressure now taking shape.
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