Dealing with a failing China could therefore prove harder for the United States than coping with the alternative has been.
If Washington hopes to do so successfully—or at least fend off the worst of the fallout—it needs to reorient its focus, and fast.
To make matters worse, it is unclear whether the Biden administration has begun working on the problem.
Unfortunately for China, the reforms Xi has targeted were the same ones that had made it so successful in the intervening period.
Xi used the event to humiliate Hu, his predecessor and the last Chinese leader to have been chosen by Deng.
But they should postpone the party, for a declining China could be much more dangerous than a booming one.
Hinting that Washington seeks regime change in Beijing, as Trump aides did on numerous occasions, accomplished little more than increasing China’s insecurity. »