China thinks America is declining but still uniquely dangerous

IN LATE January, as US President Donald Trump completed his first year back in the White House, a group of scholars in Beijing penned a report thanking the American president.

Their gratitude was sarcastic, not an endorsement of Trumpian policy. But the sentiment behind it was genuine. Thank you, they wrote, to President Trump for driving away America’s traditional allies. Thank you for showing the world that China is more trustworthy and stable. Thank you for putting economic pressure on China and thus pushing it to innovate.

And thank you, most of all, for illustrating that America is in its “imperial twilight”, a decaying and hypocritical power.