Dangerous perception gap in Sino-US ties, Opinion

Power Play is a weekly column that looks at various facets of US-China rivalry and its implications for Asia. To many of China’s foreign policy commentators, the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan confirmed their world view: that America has lost confidence in itself and is an empire in decisive decline. “What we are witnessing is the sunset of an empire,” wrote Beihang University’s associate professor Tian Feilong, in a column with the nationalist news site Guancha.cn last week. “While it still seems red and bright, it is no longer as warm as it once was.” China’s assessment that it is…