As Trump Fixates on Trade, China Is Pulling Away

Opinion|Trump Doesn’t Realize China Is Pulling Ahead of the U.S.

For years, theorists have posited the onset of a “Chinese century”: a world in which China finally harnesses its vast economic and technological potential to surpass the United States and reorient global power around a pole that runs through Beijing.

That century may already have dawned, and when historians look back they may very well pinpoint the early months of President Trump’s second term as the watershed moment when China pulled away and left the United States behind.

It doesn’t matter that Washington and Beijing have reached an inconclusive and temporary truce in Mr. Trump’s trade war. The U.S. president immediately claimed it as a win, but that only underlines the fundamental problem for the Trump administration and America: a shortsighted focus on inconsequential skirmishes as the larger war with China is being decisively lost.

Mr. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the pillars of American power and innovation. His tariffs are endangering U.S. companies’ access to global markets and supply chains. He is slashing public research funding and gutting our universities, pushing talented researchers to consider leaving for other countries. He wants to roll back programs for technologies like clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing and is wiping out American soft power in large swaths of the globe.

China’s trajectory couldn’t be more different.

It already leads global production in multiple industries — steel, aluminum, shipbuilding, batteries, solar power, electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, 5G equipment, consumer electronics, active pharmaceutical ingredients and bullet trains. It is projected to account for 45 percent — nearly half — of global manufacturing by 2030. Beijing is also laser-focused on winning the future: In March it announced a $138 billion national venture capital fund that will make long-term investments in cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computing and robotics, and increased its budget for public research and development.

The results of China’s approach have been stunning.

When the Chinese start-up DeepSeek launched its artificial intelligence chatbot in January, many Americans suddenly realized that China could compete in A.I. But there have been a series of Sputnik moments like that.