The United States and China Are Leaving a Dangerous Vacuum in Global Leadership - The Wire China
U. S. President Donald Trump tours the Hall of Prayer of Good Harvest with Chinese President Xi Jinping, May 14, 2026, at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Credit: The White House viaFlickr“Can China and the. . .
U. S. President Donald Trump tours the Hall of Prayer of Good Harvest with Chinese President Xi Jinping, May 14, 2026, at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Credit: The White House viaFlickr“Can China and the United States overcome the ‘Thucydides trap’ and establish a new paradigm for relations between great powers?” Chinese leader Xi Jinpingputthis question to his American counterpart, Donald Trump, when the two leaders met in Beijing in May. Thucydides, an Athenian general and historian, wrote a seminalaccountof the Peloponnesian War, which destroyed the Greek city-state system by the end of the fifth century. He traced the conflict to two factors: the rise of Athens and the fear that its trajectory instilled in Sparta. Political scientist Graham Allisoncoinedthe term that Xi invoked to describe the frictions between ascending and established powers, which have often culminated in war. A response to a question about ‘constructive strategic stability’ given by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun at a press event, May 14, 2026. Credit:FMPRCThat Trump and Xi should mine that bloody history for wisdom is self-evident: the human and economic toll that an armed conflict between the United States and China could exact is difficult to imagine. It is encouraging that they both attach significant importance to leader-level diplomacy and seem invested in using China’s proposedframeworkof “constructive strategic stability” as a basis for forging a more enduring détente between Washington and Beijing. In addition, partly due toturbulencewithin the top brass of the People’s Liberation Army, the short-term risk of a Chinese move on Taiwan hasdiminished. But with cross-Strait tensions worsening and maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas festering, it would be unwise to dismiss the possibility of a great-power conflict. History’s main lesson is that war is a human failure, not a structural inevitability. If the United States and China do not change course, the world’s ability to mitigate armed conflicts, protect the global commons, and manage transnational challenges will diminish severely. As they revisit Thucydides’s insights, Trump and Xi would also do well to recall those of a more recent figure, the economist Charles Kindleberger, for reasons that political scientist Joseph Nyeexplainedshortly before Trump began his first term. Kindleberger observed in a 1973bookthat the Great Depression lasted for as long as it did “because the international economic system was rendered unstable by British inability and United States unwillingness to assume responsibility for stabilizing it. ” We may be witnessing a variant of this dynamic today, with implications extending far beyond macroeconomic stewardship: the United States is actively wrecking an already fraying international order, and China, though pressing for greater reforms to and influence within it, is not agitating to underpin a wholesale alternative. President Trump at a NATO Summit press conference, July 8, 2026, held in Turkey. Credit: The White House viaFlickrWhile Trump frequentlyboaststhat the United States has never been more powerful, his second term has clarified the limits to U. S. influence. He seems to have backed off on his pledge to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, he has failed to achieve the core aims that he articulated when he initiated his misbegotten war against Iran (and indeed has bolstered the leverage that Tehran can wield with its control over the Strait of Hormuz), and he has acknowledged China as a near-peer with hisembraceof the “G2” construct. Top officials, meanwhile, includingVice President J. D. VanceandSecretary of State Marco Rubio, contend that the world is becoming more multipolar. And the administration’snational security strategydeclares that “global domination” for the United States is infeasible, observing that the “outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations. ”An excerpt from a section in the Trump administration’s U. S. National Security Strategy, released November, 2025, titled ‘Principles’. Credit:The White HouseA thoughtful reckoning with America’s constraints abroad is welcome and necessary. The Trump administration has not undertaken such an exercise, though, instead executing a campaign of self-sabotage. Its tariff onslaught against China last year hasboomeranged, giving Xi a heightened appreciation for its capacity to absorb and counter economic pressure from the United States. Its war on Iran has been a strategic setback that hasdestroyedyears’ worth of U. S. munitions, highlighted vulnerabilities in the U. S. way of war, and furtherinhibitedthe U. S. aspiration of rebalancing to Asia. Between levying steep tariffs, making territorial threats, and issuing public humiliations, it hasmotivatedU. S. allies and partners to de-risk from the United States as they continue to do so from China. And inexaltinga world of unilateral coercion, it has underscored the conclusion of many countries that the United States has become a, if not the, principal agent of instability in international relations. If, as much mainstream U. S. discoursecontends, China aims to supplant the United States for global preeminence, one might expect Beijing to make a determined push to that end over the remainder of Trump’s presidency. After all, Xi has little reason to believe that Trump’s successor will be nearly as invested in their rapport, as willing to embrace China’s conception of bilateral relations, or as disparaging of U. S. allies and partners. The 25th Heads of State Council meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, attended by over 20 leaders of non-Western countries, was held in Tianjin, August 31 to September 1, 2025. Credit:President of RussiaTo be sure, Trump’s missteps redound to China’s strategic advantage. Beijing canboostits green exports as more countries aim to diversify away from Middle East fossil fuels and accelerate their clean energy transitions. It can wield more influence within multilateral fora as the United Stateswithdrawsfrom them en masse. With the postwar order’s principal architect now its chief opponent — Trump believes that the system constrains his dealmaking freedom — it cangainmore traction for a quartet of global initiatives that it has debuted in recent years, concerning development, security, civilization, and governance. In the main, it canpresentitself as a steadying counterweight to an erratic superpower. Still, recent scholarshipchallengesthe widespread presumption that China aims to replace the United States, as does a forthcomingbookby one of the coauthors. While it seeks to reduce the salience of treaty alliances and liberal ideology, it does not want to shoulder the responsibilities that the rest of the world would thrust upon it were it to emerge — and tout itself — as the world’s foremost power. In addition, U. S. foreign policy during much of the postwar era offers a cautionary tale about the risks of military overextension and strategic distraction: China assesses that it can more sustainably accrue influence by building a portfolio of flexible alignments that center on trade, investment, and infrastructure. Supposing, though, for argument’s sake, that China has immutably maximalist objectives — to achieve global hegemony and establish a Sinocentric order — even its leadershipquestionswhether it would have a plausible pathway to achieving them. At home, itconfrontssignificant drags on its economic development, including slowing growth, mounting municipal-level debt, and spreading distress in the real-estate sector. Abroad, it faces deepening suspicion among U. S. allies and partners, even as their misgivings over U. S. conduct grow: many European countriesworrythat its exports will further hollow out their manufacturing bases, and some of its neighbors in Asia arepursuingcloser defense integration as its conventional and nuclear arsenals expand. The international order, then, is in an uncomfortable interregnum: the two foremost powers are not upholding it, and middle powers presently lack the material wherewithal and geopolitical cohesion to fill the breach. If the United States and China do not change course, the world’s ability to mitigate armed conflicts, protect the global commons, and manage transnational challenges will diminish severely. Thucydides and Kindleberger would both be alarmed were they to witness this state of affairs. Ali Wyne is the senior research and advocacy advisor for U. S. -China relations at the International Crisis Group. Jessica Chen Weiss is the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and the inaugural faculty director of its Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs. Her forthcoming book isWhat China Wants: And What It Means for the World(Oxford University Press, 2027). Cover StoryThe Return of the Taiwan TigerTaiwan’s “tiger” economy is back and burning bright. Driven by U. S. demand for Taiwan tech products, the island’s economy grew almost 15 percent in the first quarter of this year and it now exports more goods to America than China does. It is all part of a decade-long strategic pivot by Taiwan’s last two presidents away from China and towards the U. S. Corporate Risk Intelligence for National Security, Compliance & Due DiligenceLearn More