To retain one’s sanity these days, it’s important to remember the world is more than the United States, whose administration seems to be doing everything it can to destroy America’s global pre-eminence. In contrast, China’s formula seems to be ‘do nothing and win’ – is President Xi Jinping perhaps a reader of Lao Tzu in his spare time? Since Donald Trump’s re-election, which was supposed to Make America Great Again, again, China has had several ‘Sputnik moments’, at a pace which stretches the usefulness of this analogy. Often, the Chinese companies and research teams are not thinking about winning against America, but competing against their domestic counterparts.

China is effortlessly scoring soft power victories as well. Early this year, the Western netizens discovered Xiaohongshu and were amazed at the living standards enjoyed by the Chinese middle class, as well as their general goodwill towards ordinary Westerners. Now, the wildly popular American online streamer IShowSpeed has just concluded a two-week tour on the Chinese mainland; his livestream brought millions of Gen Z (or even Gen Alpha) Americans up close to a vibrant and often cosmopolitan society, not some dystopic, totalitarian menace that their elders constantly conjure up. The only thing threatening he ran into was the spicy foods which, in southwestern China especially, foreigners attempt at their own peril.

In fact, anyone who has visited China recently would have been impressed by the scale and quality of its infrastructure, the prevalence of EVs, and the affordability of consumer goods (although they still have a long way to go when it comes to barista coffee).

So, China has been doing things, but for the most part they aren’t doing thing against others. Having climbed out underneath a real estate bubble and still with a home ownership rate of about 90% (please, God – may our bubble looks like this as well), they continue to invest in their own education, research, healthcare, and manufacturing capacity – to build more things for themselves and, if there are leftovers, sell abroad. In fact, the China’s economy is less exposed to foreign trade than Australia’s, though they will need to continue pivoting away from the American market. They are wasting no time doing it: in response to Trump’s wide-ranging trade war, China, Japan, and South Korea are accelerating talks on a trilateral trade agreement. 

As long as they avoid losing, they will win by default. Here in Australia, we can keep jumping at shadows whenever China makes a move, or grasp at the straws of our ‘special relationship’ with America that never was. Or we could start investing in ourselves and deal with China pragmatically and calmly, like its (and our own) neighbours do.