Twenty-four years ago Washington welcomed China into the WTO, expecting a compliant partner. Instead China’s output grew sevenfold; during COVID its closed-loop plants filled our porches while Western workers stayed home. A near-trillion-dollar trade surplus deepened U.S. buyer’s remorse and launched today’s cold-peace, cold-war cycle.
China’s strength is rare cohesion: 1.4 billion people share one script and a habit of closing ranks in danger, from dynastic walls to digitised grid lockdowns. That unity powers electric-vehicle dominance, yet history shows the same machine stalls hard when debt, age or dissent bite.
Washington fires semiconductor embargoes and naval patrols; Beijing answers with heavy-rare-earth licences and Belt-and-Road logistics. Corporations flee tariffs and tension, often landing in Southeast Asia with Chinese capital in new passports, letting ASEAN profit as buffer and factory floor.
The gravity math is stark: at half U.S. income per head, China would be twice as large. Whether that orbit stabilises, fragments or collides depends less on today’s headlines than on how deftly the rest of the world steers between two suns—and on whether each giant can reform faster than it retaliates.
