In May 2003, about three months after the third US invasion of Iraq, US President George W. Bush stood on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, underneath a huge banner declaring, Mission Accomplished. Little did he know that he was living the peak of US power, of American exceptionalism, which two decades later would crash headlong into the inevitability of the rise of the People’s Republic of China.
The ideology of American Exceptionalism has its roots in the American Revolution, which resulted in the US being perceived as being superior to other nations and with a unique mission to transform the world. Proponents of American exceptionalism further argue that the US is entitled and destined to play a positive and distinct role in global affairs.
American Exceptionalism has been exemplified by a US penchant for war. Although the US has been attacked on its soil by foreigners only twice since the end of its Civil War in 1865, it has been at peace for only 16 of the 248 years since its independence in 1776, prompting former President Jimmy Carter to label it the “most warlike nation” in history.
Meanwhile, the US faces serious domestic challenges with no end in sight. As China has for a long time and often pointed out, the US has a serious and deep-rooted racism problem that has adverse impacts on the welfare of minorities in the US. Thus, African-Americans have worse health outcomes and lower educational attainment than Whites and have consistently higher (5.2 times in 2023) incarceration rates than Whites. Furthermore, African-Americans were 2.8 times more likely than Whites to be killed by the Police between 2013 and 2025.
The US was ranked #1 in the world in 2020 in terms of the percentage (2.97%) of total deaths accounted for by drug-related deaths compared to China, which was ranked 79th, with drug-related deaths accounting for only 0.25% of total deaths, and over 1 million Americans died from drug overdose between 1999 and 2023.
The US national debt ballooned sixfold from $5.7 trillion in 2000 to $36.2 trillion at the end of March 2025. Furthermore, the US national debt as a share of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2023 was, at 122.2%, the second highest in the world, compared to China, which ranked 6th, with its national debt at 83.6% of its GDP. As of December 2024, China was the second-largest foreign debtor of the US, holding $759 billion (2.1 percent) of the US national debt.
In 2022, China led the world in 37 out of 44 critical technologies ranging from artificial intelligence and defense to quantum technology, while the US led in only seven areas. China now has advanced military technology, including its DF-17 hypersonic missile and nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). China also has a much more robust defense industrial base (DIB) (the industrial capacity that supports military power) than the US, and its shipbuilding capacity is about 230 times bigger than that of the US.
Furthermore, the US military is dependent on China for critical minerals and technologies, despite efforts to reduce this dependency. Although the US defense budget was, at $916 billion in 2023, more than the defense spending of the next nine countries (including China and Russia) combined, the US military might has significantly declined, and the military balance is increasingly tipping in China’s favor.
US infrastructure also lags behind China’s. While China spent $2.3 trillion on infrastructure in 2022, the US infrastructure investment was $1.2 trillion over five years. China has the world’s longest high-speed rail network, with 48,000 km in 2024, while the US does not have a high-speed rail line.
China is now the top trading nation in the world and accounted for 14.7% of trade in goods and services in 2020, compared to 8.1% for the US. Twenty years earlier, the US and China were ranked 1st and 7th, respectively, trading nations in the world, accounting for 12.1% (US) and 3.9% (China) of global trade. While the US trade deficit increased almost 10-fold from $80.9 billion in 1990 to $784.9 billion in 2023, China’s trade surplus increased 36-fold from $10.7 billion to $386.1 billion over the same period. A major driver of China’s clout has been its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was launched in 2013 and has invested over $1 trillion in projects benefitting millions of people in 150 partner countries.
Although the US has tried to push back and contain China’s rise in power, these efforts have not had much impact. When President Trump imposed sanctions on Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, in 2018, the company fought back. Five years later, Huawei released the Mate60 Pro mobile phone with a 7-nanometer (nm) chip, which it was forced to develop in China because of US sanctions.
When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in March 2021 raised the issues of Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at a bilateral meeting with China, Yang Jeichi, China’s top diplomat, retorted that the US was not qualified to talk to China from a position of strength.
When President Trump started his tariff war in April 2025, including tariffs on Chinese goods, China pushed back, saying that it would “fight to the end” and imposed sanctions on US exports to China. In the end, the US essentially had to climb down and struck a deal with China to drastically reduce the tariffs.
In May 2025, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said at the Shangri-La Dialogue that China was seeking to be a “hegemonic power” in Asia and that China poses a threat. China shot back, saying that Hegseth’s accusations were false and meant to sow discord.
China has now become confident in its diplomacy and more assertive in managing its bilateral relations with the US. With over 1.4 billion people, vast resources, and a determined leadership, it was inevitable that China would rise to be the superpower it is today. There’s little, if anything, anyone can do about that. When I asked a young Nigerian in The Gambia whether an electric pressing iron he was selling was made in China, he promptly replied: “Of course, they have taken over the world without fighting.” Exceptionalism, please meet Inevitability.
