A landmark study of Chinese elite opinion finds a durable consensus that the US is in terminal decline — but Beijing is cautious about acting on that belief too soon
The View from Beijing: America Is Falling, and China Is Patient
A major new study published in the China Leadership Monitor, produced by researchers at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center, has documented something that China watchers have long suspected but that is now supported by systematic evidence: the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership has settled into a durable, deeply held conviction that the United States is in terminal decline, and that time is fundamentally on China’s side. But the research also reveals a more nuanced and strategically cautious Chinese response to this conviction than many analysts had anticipated.
Jonathan Czin, the Michael H. Armacost Chair at Brookings and a former senior CIA analyst who served on the National Security Council, and research assistant Allie Matthias, spent months analysing authoritative, semi-authoritative, and non-authoritative Chinese sources — official speeches, party journals, state media, and academic publications — tracking the language used by Chinese elites to describe American power and its trajectory. Their findings illuminate the ideological framework that shapes Beijing’s strategic thinking at one of the most consequential moments in modern geopolitics.
The Ideological Roots of Beijing’s Diagnosis
The belief that capitalist powers are doomed to decline is not merely a political calculation for the CCP — it is a foundational ideological conviction rooted in Leninism. As the researchers note, Lenin himself argued a century ago that capitalism was a system whose eventual collapse was historically inevitable. For Xi Jinping and the party apparatus he leads, this is not just rhetoric: it shapes how they interpret every development in American domestic and foreign policy.
In a 2023 speech to new members of the Central Committee — published in January 2025 in Qiushi, the party’s flagship ideological journal — Xi made the Chinese leadership’s assessment explicit. He highlighted what he characterised as the increasing difficulties of Western countries and celebrated what he called the stark contrast between the rise of the East and decline of the West. The speech was delivered in a closed setting, designed to motivate the next generation of party leaders, which makes its candour particularly revealing.
A Self-Confirming Worldview
The study’s most striking finding is the degree to which Chinese elite opinion has constructed an unfalsifiable narrative of American decline. When the United States takes active steps internationally — deploying military force, building alliances, imposing export controls — Chinese commentators characterise these as signs of “hegemonic anxiety” and a declining power lashing out. When the US retreats internationally or pursues an America First unilateralism, they characterise this as evidence of a superpower unable to sustain its global commitments. Every development confirms the diagnosis.
This Monty Python-esque diagnostic consistency, as the researchers wryly put it, reflects both the ideological predisposition of Leninist analysis and the propaganda imperatives of a party that needs to reassure its domestic audience that history is moving in China’s favour. State media have amplified the views of Western economists and intellectuals who express pessimism about American prospects, while systematically downplaying evidence of US resilience or renewal.
The Response: Patience, Not Aggression
What makes the Czin-Matthias study particularly valuable is its finding that, contrary to the predictions of some Western analysts, Beijing’s conviction that the US is declining has not driven a more aggressive Chinese foreign policy — at least not until recently. Instead, the dominant response has been what the researchers characterise as strategic patience: insulating China from competitive pressure, building retaliatory tools, and positioning Beijing to fill governance vacuums as American engagement recedes.
This response reflects a rational calculation embedded in the Chinese leadership’s own statements: if time is on China’s side, why provoke the US, which remains powerful enough to cause serious damage even as it declines? As one Chinese MFA official put it in 2024, “China will not gamble on the United States losing.” The logic is straightforward — if the US is indeed declining, the optimal strategy is to wait it out, strengthen China’s position, and avoid the kind of confrontation that could trigger an American response that would set Beijing’s ambitions back.
Xi’s Initiatives: Filling the Governance Vacuum
The most active expression of China’s declinist worldview has not been military aggression but a rolling wave of diplomatic initiatives designed to position Beijing as an alternative centre of global governance. Xi has launched a Global Development Initiative, a Global Security Initiative, a Global Civilisation Initiative, and most recently a Global Governance Initiative, announced at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in September 2025. These initiatives, whatever their substantive content, signal Beijing’s aspiration to shape international institutions and norms in China’s image as American engagement with multilateral institutions diminishes.
As the Trump administration has withdrawn from or disengaged from international organisations — a process formalised in a January 2026 executive order — China has stepped into the resulting spaces, offering its own frameworks, its own standards, and its own vision of global order. Whether these alternatives will prove durable or attractive to the majority of the world’s nations remains to be seen. But the strategy is coherent, patient, and backed by substantial resources.
The Challenge This Poses for Democracy
For advocates of democracy and free societies, the findings of this study raise urgent questions. If Beijing’s conviction that America is declining becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy — if the US does in fact retreat from its global commitments, weaken its democratic institutions, and cede the field to authoritarian alternatives — then the consequences for the billions of people who live under or aspire to democratic governance will be severe. Hong Kong has already experienced what it means to have democratic protections withdrawn under Chinese pressure. Taiwan lives daily with the military threat that flows from Beijing’s conviction that it can absorb the island as US resolve declines. The study is a reminder that the way powerful states think about themselves and their rivals shapes the world the rest of us inhabit. For authoritative ongoing analysis of Chinese elite thinking and its policy implications, the China Leadership Monitor publishes rigorous scholarship from leading experts. The Brookings Institution’s China research provides complementary analysis from former policymakers and academics. Czin himself concludes with a sobering observation: the deeper question for the United States is not whether China’s assessment of US decline is wrong, but whether it might be right — and what Americans are prepared to do about it.
Jessica Lam
Politics & Diaspora Affairs Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: jessica.lam@appledaily.uk
Jessica Lam is a politics and diaspora affairs journalist with specialized expertise in Hong Kong governance, overseas Chinese communities, and democratic movements. Educated at a leading UK journalism institution, she received advanced training in political reporting, international law basics, and source protection, equipping her for complex cross-border coverage.
Jessica has worked with Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese publications, reporting on electoral systems, civic participation, protest movements, and policy developments affecting the Chinese diaspora. Her work demonstrates strong command of political context and an ability to translate complex issues into accessible, fact-driven journalism.
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