China’s Arrogance Is Uniting Its Rivals
Authoritarian states have a history of underestimating democracies, becoming more dangerous after realizing their mistake.
Hold the celebration.
Photographer: Naohiko Hatta/Getty Images
Over the past century, globally ambitious autocracies have frequently made two fatal mistakes. First, they have underestimated the U.S., a country whose shambolic democracy masks its tremendous resilience and strength. Second, they have failed to see how their own aggressive behavior will, eventually, drive their multiplying enemies together. Judging by recent events, Xi Jinping’s China is making both mistakes at once.
Xi doesn’t think much of America right now. In speeches, he has said that “the world is going through changes seen once in a century” as China rises and the U.S. falters. In a meeting with Joe Biden administration officials in Alaska last month, his diplomats ridiculed the idea that a divided, distracted America could speak to Beijing from a “position of strength.”