A recent Bloomberg article, “Give Up on ‘Winning’ Against China” (16 Dec 2025), argues that the United States should acknowledge China’s growing influence rather than cling to the hope of its decline. Over the past three decades, Western misconceptions—rooted in orientalist thinking, Cold War binaries, and ideological assumptions—led many scholars to view China as a cultural or historical anomaly rather than a strategic actor capable of shaping its own modern path. These intellectual habits reinforced the belief that China could only rise by adopting Western norms, allowing Beijing to capitalize on Western complacency. Recognizing China’s distinct model and its global ambitions requires confronting these deep-seated biases, a process that has only gradually begun, underscoring the unrealistic nature of efforts to “beat” China.
Rethinking the US Approach: Why “Winning” Against China Is No Longer Realistic
Bloomberg’s recent analysis argues that the United States must abandon the notion of “defeating” China, as decades of economic, technological, and strategic developments demonstrate Beijing’s resilience and global influence. The long-promoted “China collapse theory” has repeatedly been proven wrong, particularly during the US-China trade disputes under the Trump administration, when China not only withstood tariffs but also extracted concessions in negotiations. These outcomes reveal China’s economic strength and its growing leverage in international trade, challenging the assumption that the US can unilaterally dictate outcomes in a deeply interconnected world.
China’s technological and industrial rise further complicates any simplistic notion of “winning.” The country has established leadership in critical sectors such as rare earths, clean energy, electric vehicles, robotics, drones, and battery technology, while rapidly advancing in AI and quantum computing, exemplified by the open-source AI model DeepSeek-R1. Beyond innovation, China excels at scaling these technologies across its economy, translating breakthroughs into strategic and industrial power. At the same time, China is closing the military gap, with advancements such as the Fujian aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapult technology and rapidly expanding naval capabilities that, in some areas, outpace those of the United States.
The global balance of dependence further undermines efforts to “beat” China. The United States relies heavily on China for essential resources, including rare earths and pharmaceutical ingredients, while China has cultivated the ability to operate independently of critical US technologies, such as Nvidia chips. Moreover, despite Western warnings of economic stagnation, China’s growth remains stable and forward-looking, particularly compared with domestic US challenges, including political gridlock and industrial volatility. Taken together, these economic, technological, and strategic realities suggest that the United States must rethink its approach: the pursuit of “winning” against China is no longer a realistic or productive strategy.
Rethinking Assumptions: How the Post–Cold War Mental Model Misread China
In the aftermath of the Cold War, the United States and much of the Western world adopted a dominant assumption: any rising power that integrates into the global economy will inevitably become “like us.” This post–Cold War mental model profoundly shaped policy toward China from the 1990s onward, but it rested on a series of deeply flawed Western misconceptions.
The first misconception linked economic growth to liberal democracy, assuming that China’s rapid development would weaken the Chinese Communist Party, empower individuals over the collective, and eventually force electoral reforms. This view ignored four millennia of Chinese governance, where legitimacy derives from performance, stability, and collective welfare rather than elections. By projecting the Western historical experience onto China, policymakers mistook cultural and structural difference for systemic instability.
The second misconception treated China as a fragile, temporary system. The so-called “China collapse theory” fit neatly into a Western dualistic worldview: democracy equaled stability and legitimacy, while authoritarianism implied brittleness and inevitable decline. Western elites assumed that China’s rise was conditional and reversible, but decades of economic and strategic consolidation have “ruthlessly refuted” this belief, revealing China as a resilient and structurally entrenched power.
The third misconception portrayed China as a mere imitator, a low-cost manufacturer dependent on foreign technology and markets. This superficial assessment overlooked China’s capacity for long-term planning, strategic organization of capital and power, and indigenous innovation. Today, China is a global leader in emerging technologies and industrial capacity, demonstrating that it is not simply following the West’s path but charting its own.
Taken together, these misconceptions show that the post–Cold War Western mental model fundamentally misread China from the start. The enduring belief in inevitable convergence, systemic fragility, and technological imitation blinded policymakers to China’s actual trajectory, leaving the West unprepared for a competitor capable of redefining global norms on its own terms.
Western Complacency and the Perils of Overconfidence in Engagement with China
For decades, Western engagement with China was shaped more by confidence than by curiosity. Policymakers assumed that entry into the World Trade Organization would automatically instill discipline and convergence, that trade dependence would flow one way, and that technology sharing would guarantee a permanent Western lead. Media narratives reinforced these assumptions by portraying China’s system as inherently unsustainable, creating a sense of complacency rather than strategic caution.
This overconfidence was particularly evident in assumptions about China’s economic trajectory. The so-called “China Peak” theory predicted inevitable slowing GDP growth due to demographics, debt, and structural shifts. Yet China continued to implement transformative infrastructure projects, from high-speed rail to renewable energy networks and AI initiatives, defying expectations of a natural economic plateau. Similarly, forecasts suggested that consumption-led growth could not offset declining exports and investment. In reality, China’s state-led economic model allowed for deliberate orchestration of growth, mitigating the sharp declines that purely market-driven systems might experience.
Western analysts also assumed that economic shocks—whether in real estate, finance, or global demand—would trigger systemic decline. China’s rapid interventions, including targeted credit easing, market stabilization, and corporate debt management, consistently countered these risks. The result was a pattern of engagement without strategic humility: while the West debated whether China should be allowed to rise, China focused on how to rise, skillfully leveraging the very system the West had helped construct.
Ultimately, the West’s misconceptions fostered a dangerous complacency. Confidence without curiosity led to underestimation of China’s capacity for adaptation and innovation, leaving policymakers ill-prepared for a rapidly evolving global competitor. The lesson is clear: engagement alone is insufficient; it must be accompanied by continuous observation, strategic humility, and a readiness to reassess assumptions in the face of evidence.
China Exploiting the West’s Blind Spots: Strategic Advantage Through Selective Engagement
China has systematically capitalized on the West’s blind spots, turning assumptions of alignment into strategic leverage. Contrary to the popular convergence myth, Beijing never sought to mirror Western norms. Instead, it pursued selective integration, opening markets only where it was advantageous, while rigorously protecting and subsidizing strategic sectors. Foreign capital, technology, and talent were absorbed, but sovereignty over finance, data, and industrial policy remained firmly in state hands. Western observers often misread this participation as ideological alignment, failing to recognize China’s careful balancing of openness and control.
This approach allowed China to cultivate a long-term scaling advantage. Leveraging its collectivist, state-capacity-driven model, it achieved outcomes where scale trumped first-mover innovation. In electric vehicles, batteries, and solar technology, sheer deployment speed outweighed elegance; in rare earths, control of chokepoints mattered more than ideology; in robotics and manufacturing, rapid application prevailed; and in artificial intelligence, workaround capabilities ensured resilience without dependency on Western systems. China’s strategy was never about “winning” on Western terms—it was about enduring, scaling, and consolidating advantage over time.
China also weaponized interdependence, exploiting asymmetric vulnerabilities in the global economy. The West assumed mutual dependence would restrain Chinese ambition, but Beijing carefully mapped dependencies that mattered to it strategically, including pharmaceuticals, rare earths, manufacturing capacity, and supply chain depth. By the time Western policymakers recognized these vulnerabilities, unwinding them had become economically and politically costly, further cementing China’s leverage.
Through selective integration, scaling advantages, and asymmetric interdependence, China has effectively turned the West’s blind spots into strategic tools. The outcome is a deliberate, patient accumulation of strength, demonstrating that misreading participation as alignment can carry profound consequences for global power dynamics.
The Tariff War as the Defining Test of China’s Rise
In early 2025, many economists predicted that China might repeat the mistakes of Japan in the 1990s. Analysts foresaw challenges from Trump’s re-election, global supply chain diversification, and the relocation of manufacturing overseas, all of which seemed poised to weaken China’s industrial dominance. Yet, by the end of the year, the narrative had dramatically shifted. China had confronted the trade pressures head-on, preserving its position as the world’s most dynamic manufacturing hub. The resurgence of foreign investment, coupled with a booming AI sector that propelled Hong Kong’s stock market to a four-year high, signaled a clear reversal of expectations. The Trump-era trade war had shattered the lingering illusion that China would fold under economic pressure.
Psychologically, the event was even more significant. U.S. policymakers had assumed China had “no cards” to play, that it was fragile, dependent, and internally unstable—a belief sometimes framed as the “China Peak” assumption. Yet China demonstrated resilience, strategic patience, and calibrated retaliation. In the end, the United States retreated while maintaining a veneer of victory. This was not merely an economic confrontation; it marked a collapse of deeply held narratives about China’s capabilities and vulnerabilities.
China’s remarkable success is grounded in three mutually reinforcing pillars: human capital, advanced manufacturing, and application-oriented AI. The country’s engineering workforce tripled from 5.2 million in 2000 to 17.7 million by 2020, creating a critical mass of technical talent. Nearly half of the world’s top 20% of AI researchers have studied in China, compared with just 18% in the United States. This scale advantage statistically increases the likelihood of breakthroughs in applied AI, advanced manufacturing, and other high-tech sectors, demonstrating the power of large-scale investment in human capital.
Advanced manufacturing has been a key driver of China’s global competitiveness. Industries such as automobiles, integrated circuits, and shipbuilding are growing rapidly, contributing to a record $1 trillion trade surplus. AI and automation amplify productivity, enabling China to outpace traditional export powerhouses like Germany and Japan. Moreover, China emphasizes pragmatic, application-oriented AI rather than pursuing general AI (AGI) exclusively. From fully automated “lights-out” factories to AI-optimized logistics and design cycles, this approach converts research into measurable economic outcomes, reinforcing the country’s industrial strength and export capacity.
The recognition of China’s achievements in the West lagged not due to lack of observation but because cognitive and institutional frameworks were slow to adjust. Only when the scale and sophistication of China’s technological and manufacturing advances became undeniable did the West confront the reality: China has charted a path that is neither Western nor derivative, yet remarkably effective. The tariff war thus became a moment of truth, exposing the resilience, strategic acumen, and industrial innovation that define China’s rise on the global stage.
From Perceived Threat to Enduring Reality: Understanding China’s Rise
For decades, Western discourse on China was dominated by fear and speculation. Analysts often framed China as a looming threat, assuming eventual collapse, forced convergence to Western norms, or easy containment. These narratives, however, rested more on misunderstanding than on evidence. Recent analyses, such as Bloomberg’s reporting, reflect a significant shift: the West is beginning to recognize China not with admiration or surrender, but with a sober acceptance of its parity in power and permanence on the global stage.
Traditional economic logic predicts a natural ceiling to China’s growth due to demographic pressures, rising debt, and structural transitions. Yet China’s unique model—rooted in collectivism and strong state capacity—provides tools to mitigate these pressures. Through direct resource allocation, coordinated large-scale investment, strategic crisis management, industrial policy, and social coordination to maintain labor and consumption, China has the institutional ability to flatten, delay, or manage its growth peak rather than face an abrupt slowdown. Political and institutional factors, often overlooked in Western projections, are central to this resilience.
This recalibration does not imply that China has “defeated” the United States or the West. Rather, it reflects a pragmatic acknowledgment that three longstanding assumptions have proven false: that China will inevitably collapse, that it will converge economically and politically with the West, and that it can be contained cheaply. Accepting China’s enduring reality signals a move from fear-driven speculation toward a measured understanding of its sustained global presence and capacity to navigate complex challenges.
Why the West’s Recognition of China Comes Only Now
For decades, Western analysts framed modernity as a single, universal trajectory: liberal democracy coupled with free-market capitalism. Within this lens, China’s early growth was often dismissed as mere “catch-up,” while its initial successes were labeled imitation. Reforms in the 1980s and 1990s were interpreted as temporary concessions, expected eventually to converge to Western political and economic norms. This mindset created a cognitive comfort zone in which China’s achievements were seen as anomalies or unsustainable rather than as evidence of a distinct, viable model.
Observers treated China primarily as a follower, emphasizing its deficiencies—political repression, state control—over its capabilities. For decades, internal challenges were viewed as terminal, and infrastructural or technological advances were underappreciated. The prevailing narrative overlooked the scale and depth of China’s development, framing its growth as derivative rather than innovative.
Only now, as China has demonstrated independent innovation, advanced technological capabilities, military modernization, control of critical global supply chains—including dominance in rare-earth processing—and resilience under international pressure, has denial become impossible. Its achievements in AI, renewable energy, and large-scale infrastructure are redefining global norms. These developments make it clear that China’s rise is not temporary; it represents a distinct, powerful, and enduring model. The West’s realization comes only now because the evidence has become too substantial to interpret within old frameworks, forcing a reassessment of China as an original and influential actor on the global stage.
Final Thoughts
Western misconceptions created strategic blindness that China has exploited through discipline, scale, and patience. Recognizing China not merely as a rising power but as a civilization-defining force challenges long-held Western narratives of leadership, exceptionalism, and civilizational authority. This “psychic shock” has generated denial, deflection, and minimization, compounded by cognitive biases such as status quo bias and loss aversion, which delayed honest assessment. Today, the West faces a reluctant reassessment: one cannot “win” against a civilization-sized competitor that does not share your values, seeks no approval, and operates on its own timelines. The Bloomberg article simply acknowledges that this moment, long anticipated, has now arrived.
References
- “Give Up on ‘Winning’ Against China”, Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-us-china-rivalry/, 16 Dec 2025