For years, Washington comforted itself with a reassuring phrase: China was a “near-peer competitor.” Near-peer implied China was close but not equal. It was a challenger still climbing the ladder while America remained securely at the top.

President Donald Trump’s just-concluded summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing shattered that illusion.

The visit showed that the world’s largest autocratic state is no longer America’s near-peer. It is America’s peer.

The symbolism alone was striking. Trump arrived in Beijing not as the triumphant leader of an unchallenged superpower, but as the head of a country increasingly constrained abroad, economically vulnerable at home, and struggling to impose its will even on far weaker adversaries.

When Trump postponed the Beijing trip from March to May, he likely expected to arrive after forcing Iran into submission. Instead, he landed in Beijing with the Iran war still unresolved, America’s military stockpiles depleted, and U.S. credibility bruised.

Beijing summit was designed to project parity

Xi understood the moment perfectly. The carefully choreographed summit was designed to project parity: two leaders, two superpowers, two equals managing global stability together. Beijing no longer behaves like a rising power seeking acceptance into an American-led........

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