On Thursday, President Xi Jinping of China is meeting President Donald Trump at the White House. The United States and China are in significantly different places and the world increasingly fragmented and multi-polar since he last visited the White House to meet President Barack Obama in 2015. As the American and Chinese leaders meet, the most consequential question is: who is shaping the international order, and according to whose principles and rules?
The answer may be more nuanced than many expected: while the U.S. remains the world’s most powerful country, China is emerging as an architect of that order. Beijing is creating institutions, proposing diplomatic initiatives, establishing technological standards and offering infrastructure to countries across the world. But its influence extends beyond diplomacy.
China offers developing countries alternative paths to prosperity, mobilizing its technological champions as sources of power. Rather than replicating the American system of military alliance and security guarantees, Beijing is building networks of trade and alternative financial institutions. China is also promoting a new vocabulary of international affairs—one that is deliberately distinct from the American language of power.
China does not have a miraculous, surefire plan to succeed the U.S. as the world’s new hegemon. Nor is there evidence that other countries are prepared to embrace a Chinese-led system entirely. China’s ambition appears more complicated: it seeks greater influence over the ideas and institutions that determine how the international system works.
Beijing wants not merely a decisive vote in the game, but a hand in writing its rules. Beijing is pursuing this ambition at a moment when Washington, despite its power, appears less willing to shoulder the traditional burdens of global leadership. Its domestic political divisions, the Trump Administration’s apparent disregard for international law, and its erratic approach to foreign policy and global conflicts have raised questions about the future of American stewardship.
Yet China is not inheriting a vacuum. Thanks to its power, Washington remains deeply entrenched in the institutions, alliances, and technologies that underpin its supremacy. China is gaining room to shape the international order, but it is not yet replacing the power that built much of it.
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