Worries by the United States that China will take over its leadership role are based on a serious strategic misunderstanding. The road ahead for the international power structure as it shifts to a multipolar pattern may be long and difficult, but the prospects are promising.

A series of policies in the U.S. has made life much more difficult for China concepts stock companies. CCS listings in the U.S. are emerging as the next big risk, and the adoption of the variable interest entity structure, or VIE, is storing up trouble.

True multilateralism, as reflected in the UN Charter, is the foundation of a functional world order, which in turn yields peace and prosperity. The future is not necessarily gloomy, so long as nations, which face daunting challenges, can work together in a spirit of harmony.

The current world is undergoing a dichotomy of development. On the one hand, the tangible and intangible bindings of international community become increasingly intertwined, thus not only making the world an earth village, but also an integrated entity. On the other hand, there are also forces pulling the world apart and making the international community fragmented and in piecemeal. Moreover, arising are some worrying social thoughts such as unilateralism, protectionism, extremism and Xenophobia. These phenomena are also teaching us that physical power is far from enough to combat the current and future challenges to the mankind. Indeed, to meet these challenges we need to synchronize both physical and cultural strength.

“There is only one system in the world, and that is the international system with the United Nations at its core,” President Xi Jinping said. “There is only one order, and that is the international order based on international law.”

For the United States, the Nord Stream 2 gas project is a reminder of its waning global hegemony. Its ability to control its allies has declined. Bilateral relations have deteriorated. Attempts to block construction have failed. America has become a shadow of its former self.

China-U.S. relations are the main stress point in the present-day world, and the U.S. has yet to accept China’s bottom lines. While chilly political relations and warm economic ones are the new normal, it is still possible for the two to meet halfway.

During the four decades of the Cold War, the United States had a grand strategy focused on containing the power of the Soviet Union. Yet by the 1990s, following the Soviet Union’s collapse, America had been deprived of that pole star. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, US President George W. Bush’s administration tried to fill the void with a strategy that it called a “global war on terror.” But that approach provided nebulous guidance and led to long US-led wars in marginal places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Since 2017, the US has returned to “great-power competition,” this time with China.

The Group of Seven (G7) Leadership Summit held last June was stated to be an occasion for the Western leaders to “reestablish” the international order after the COVID-19 pandemic. It was also for the U.S. to demonstrate its return “back at the table”.

The U.S. and others should help developing countries solve their problems, rather than using them as a playing field in a geopolitical competition with China. Excessive competition will not lead to the better world that the American president says he seeks.