The unmistakable sign of Xi Jinping emerging as the second most powerful leader after Mao Zedong was visible at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party in 2017 when it incorporated “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” through an amendment in the Constitution of the Communist Party of China. He had already been established as a “Core Leader” earlier. However, when the National People's Congress almost unanimously decided to do away with the two-term limit on the presidency, it was clear that the “Chairman of everything” would remain in power for life. His “coronation” as the third term president in 2023 was merely a formality.

The former and forthcoming president of the US has been described as a disruptor taking over a “divided nation”, but with the Republicans having clinched the leadership over both chambers of Congress, the power of the 47the head of state, head of government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the most powerful country on planet earth is going to be unassailable. There is a reason President Donald Trump’s threats of seizing the Panama Canal, annexing Greenland and integrating Canada are being seriously analysed rather than merely being dismissed as the boastful rant of a xenophobic populist.

President Xi inherits the tradition of over two millennia of imperial statecraft dating back at least to the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) that institutionalised the Confucian Thought of a virtuous ruler and the meritocratic bureaucracy. A popular belief in the Mandate of Heaven—the idea that there could be only one legitimate ruler of China at a time—allowed Chairman Mao to replace Chiang Kai-shek as the “great helmsman” and then rule for life. Bestowed with the “pilot at the helm” honorific, President Xi appears to have acquired an equally consecrated status that can only be revoked with the divine retribution through natural calamities or the dishonour of defeat at the hands of an enemy.

President Trump will be taking over a country without a socio-cultural history: The politico-economic entity named the United States of America was founded when the “United Colonies” of the white settlers decided to sever their relationship with colonial powers. A “new nation” was formed after a disruption with its civilisational roots in Europe through an incomplete revolution and the Treaties of Paris in 1783 that had its singular focus on a shared future for the settlers of European ancestry.

Ideological contest

If President Xi can draw upon the resilience of a civilisation that “predates the birth of Christ by hundreds, even thousands, of years”, President Trump possesses the raw energy of a new nation unburdened by the weight of history. In the Cold War I, the US and the USSR shared a similar aim of dominating the future. It was purely an ideological competition for the enlargement of spheres of influence. The contest in the Cold War II is going to be civilisational between American exceptionalism and Chinese centricity. The Jinping Empire knows that it is destined to be the Zhongguo, or the “Middle Kingdom”, as it once was before the Century of Humiliation (1839-1949) succeeded in temporarily sucking out its life force.

When “The Great Helmsman” Mao Zedong stood up to the Soviet Union and made Richard Nixon seek his audience in Beijing, part of the honour was restored. The “Little Helmsman” Deng Xiaoping refused to be cowed down after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 and showed that China dealt with the world on its own terms. Rather than talking about its strength, the “New Helmsman” Xi Jinping has been busy showing that all that China needs to do is be itself to emerge once again as what it once was—one of the most important civilisations in human history.

Many prognoses of the Cold War II seem to be based on the assumption that President Xi will ultimately behave as rationally as the Russian strongman Mikhail Gorbachev. Leading an ailing and aging Marxist-Leninist worldview, strongman Gorbachev was forced to base his decisions on the cold analyses of cost and benefit of protecting the rusting Soviet Empire that had begun to disintegrate. President Xi leads a rejuvenated power that draws its energy from the past but has its eyes equally firmly on the “New Era for China”.

The scale of Chinese influence through a series of strategic initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI), and the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) from Africa to the Americas speaks for itself. A string of institutions such as the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the China-Africa Development Fund (CADFund) and the New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS countries are operational arms of China’s global reach. With the Washington Consensus increasingly being known for constricting conditionalities, the Beijing Consensus has begun to appear consensual in comparison.

There isn’t much new as such in the MAGA megalomania: Arrogance bordering on hubris is the characteristic of decadent powers. The high-sounding concept of a “free-world” with democracy, free trade and human rights as its fundamental components has always been an ideological cloak to hide the hegemonic ambitions of the US. Its relationship with other countries is essentially transactional: The moment the utility of even a loyal regime is over, Washington dumps it and moves on as was done in Saigon in 1975, Tehran in 1979 or Kabul in 2021. A surge in trade surplus of 2024 to $1 Trillion has torn the propagandist veil and shown why tariff is ‘the most beautiful word’ in President Trump’s economic plan.

Success story

The Chinese seem to prefer a relationship of fealty and protection where the ritual obeisance of a loyal ruler to the Celestial Empire is rewarded with the recognition of the sovereignty of the subservient country. Reassuring expressions of acknowledgement such as the respect for territorial integrity, non-interference and sanctity of sovereignty emanating from Beijing are like music to the ears of insecure leaders of instable countries in the developing world.

Beijing and Islamabad have renewed their commitment to the second phase of the strategic China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through increased Chinese investment. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake of Sri Lanka is on a state visit to China to “inject a new source of power into their ties in the new era”. Md Touhid Hossain, Foreign Affairs Adviser to the extra-constitutional government in Dhaka, will be going to Beijing soon not just to mend but “strengthen and deepen the bilateral relations”. In his fourth term in office, Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli of Nepal chose China as his first significant foreign visit. Everyone from peripheral countries is eager to show fealty to the Red Emperor Xi Jinping.

Back in the late 1970s, the “US imperialism and Indian expansionism hands off Nepal” used to be the strident chant of Jhapali communists. With Premier Sharma Oli being the prime mover of Xi Jinping Thought in Nepal, the irrepressible exuberance of UML cadres and the resigned inertia in the Nepali Congress camps are equally understandable. Perhaps New Delhi is just keeping a close watch for now. Let the new round of diplomatic games in Kathmandu begin.