The resilience of such views in the PRC press reflects genuine assessments of U.S. internal contradictions, the Chinese Communist Party’s Leninist predisposition to see capitalist powers as declining, and a desire to buttress the party’s own propaganda. Notably, contrary to previous expectations, the persistence of PRC views of U.S. decline do not seem to have prompted a shift toward a more aggressive policy. Instead, until recently, this assessment seems to have led Chinese officials to judge that time is on China’s side, and the PRC should avoid provoking the U.S., which has the capacity to lash out at China even as it declines.
søndag 1. mars 2026
Occidental Fall: Assessing Chinese Views of U.S. Decline
China’s leadership, state media, and foreign policy analysts consider the U.S. a declining but dangerous power. That assessment has remained durable since Michael Swaine analyzed views in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in his 2021 essay for China Leadership Monitor, though the frequency of that assessment has fluctuated.
