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By Micah McCartney
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The United States' war against Iran is likely to reinforce the widely held view in China that Washington is a power in decline, analysts say.
The country's political class believes time is on its side in the great power competition, according to an analysis of official messaging by China Leadership Monitor, a publication focused on the country's elite politics.
The narrative characterized by Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2020 statement that the "East is rising and the West is falling" emerged around the time of the 2008 financial crisis and gained traction early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when China brought its domestic outbreak under control after the virus spread beyond its borders while the U.S. grappled with soaring infections and deaths.
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This early success, along with China's closing the gap with the United States in artificial intelligence and other technologies, as well as militarily, has been presented as evidence that the country is ascendant.
China's state-controlled media has also amplified this narrative, meanwhile portraying U.S. military intervention as the actions of a rogue state and rising homelessness, civil unrest and other social problems as signs of serious deficiencies in U.S.-style governance.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese embassy in the United States via email for comment.
What To Know
This narrative is driven by a mix of American foreign policy moves, propaganda efforts and the Chinese Communist Party's own Leninist predisposition toward seeing the American system as doomed to fail, write authors Allie Matthias and Johnathan Czin, both analysts with the Brookings Institution's China Center.
Mentions of "the East is rising and the West is falling" in Chinese academic journals rose sharply, peaking at more than 800 sometime in 2022 before gradually declining, though still far more prevalent than in 2019. Another phrase associated with U.S. decline among Chinese academics, "great changes unseen in a century," soared in popularity in that same period.
However, mentions of "the East is rising and the West is falling" had been trending downward in news sources before rising sharply again at the end of 2024. That same period also saw a spike in references to "American decline" across all sources—journals, newspapers and academic conferences.
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This is "likely in response to growing domestic confidence in China’s global power, President Trump’s return to power as well as the administration’s erratic decision-making on both domestic and foreign policy," the authors say.
Even in the wake of more assertive foreign policy moves, such as U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and last year's bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities, these developments did not appear to erode the view, but rather further damaged Washington's reputation, the authors write.
Rather, official views have tended to maintain this narrative, whether the United States demonstrates dominance internationally—acting aggressively in a bid to preserve its power—or when it acts unilaterally and withdraws from global organizations.
"Though party newspapers may be capitalizing on U.S. dysfunction and international behavior for propaganda reasons, local newspapers do demonstrate how Chinese authorities are painting the U.S. to domestic audiences," the article says.
Still, even a weakening U.S. empire is considered dangerous, and the prevailing official view is that China should avoid provoking its rival into lashing out: "The PRC (People's Republic of China) has focused insulating itself against the U.S. and bolstering its international prestige with its various Global Initiatives."
What People Are Saying
Allie Matthias, co-author of the report, wrote on X: "This is especially relevant in the wake of Trump's strikes on Iran. Beijing will inevitably point to this as a sign of the US's 'hegemonic decay.' China will see this behavior as not only accelerating the US's internal collapse but also creating a more chaotic world."
Zheng Yongnian, the founding director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen's Advanced Institute for International Affairs, told the South China Morning Post: "In reality, the U.S. retains formidable economic strength and possesses unparalleled military power globally. Despite numerous issues within its political and social spheres, we absolutely must not underestimate America's capabilities."
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen whether the ongoing U.S.-Israeli toppling of Iran's leadership and significant degradation of its military capabilities will affect this assessment in Beijing, though much may depend on how the conflict develops and whether it ultimately strengthens or weakens perceptions of American power.
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