China Is Sabotaging the World That Enables Its Rise

Foreign Affairs  |  Enrico Fardella, Sergey Radchenko

Chinese President Xi Jinping utilized back-to-back state visits to Beijing in May by U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to project global dominance. Although Western and European commentators argued these high-profile summits yielded very little practical or substantive policy outcomes, the lack of concrete results remained entirely irrelevant to Chinese leadership.

Instead, the primary value of these diplomatic meetings lay in the highly curated visuals broadcast extensively across Chinese state media. These carefully staged broadcasts deliberately depicted the Chinese leader receiving what resembled traditional tribute missions from the world's most powerful foreign potentates, echoing the historical dynamics of ancient Chinese emperors. Ultimately, these symbolic representations served a critical domestic and international purpose by reinforcing Beijing's official narrative that China has successfully overtaken its global rivals and permanently reestablished itself at the absolute center of the modern world order.

Comment

Continental powers often use symbolic state visits to project domestic stability during economic stagnation. The 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship illustrates this pattern of transactional alignment against Western influence. This symbolic posturing masks deep structural vulnerabilities in China's industrial supply chains. Western maritime containment along the First Island Chain remains a critical vulnerability for Chinese planners.

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