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.

多年来，理论家们一直在设想一个“中国世纪”的到来：在那个世界里，中国最终利用其巨大的经济和技术潜力超越美国，重塑全球力量格局，使其以北京为中心。

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.

那个世纪可能已经到来，而当历史学家回顾时，他们很可能会指出，特朗普总统第二任期的前几个月是中国拉开距离，把美国甩在后面的分水岭。

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.

华盛顿和北京在特朗普的贸易战中达成了没有实质成果的暂时休战，但这无关紧要。美国总统立即声称这是一场胜利，反而凸显出特朗普政府和美国面临的根本问题：在与中国那场更为关键的的战争面临惨败之际，美国却在目光短浅地关注无关紧要的小规模冲突。

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.

特朗普正在大肆破坏美国力量和创新的支柱。他的关税正在危及美国公司进入全球市场和供应链的机会。他正在削减公共研究经费，削弱我们的大学，迫使有才华的研究人员考虑离开美国前往其他国家。他想缩减清洁能源和半导体制造等技术项目，并在全球大片地区消灭美国的软实力。

China’s trajectory couldn’t be more different.

中国的轨迹截然不同。

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.

在钢铝、造船、电池、太阳能、电动汽车、风力涡轮机、无人机、5G设备、消费电子产品、活性药物成分和高铁等多个行业，中国的产量已经位居全球首位。预计到2030年，中国将占全球制造业的45%，接近一半。北京同样非常关注赢得未来：今年3月，它宣布成立一个1万亿元的国家风险投资基金，对量子计算和机器人等尖端技术进行长期投资，并增加了公共研发预算。

The results of China’s approach have been stunning.

中国的做法取得了惊人的成果。

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.

今年1月，当中国初创公司深度求索推出其人工智能聊天机器人时，许多美国人突然意识到，中国可以在人工智能领域展开竞争。但是不止如此，这样的“斯普特尼克时刻”还有很多。

The Chinese electric carmaker BYD, which Mr. Trump’s political ally Elon Musk once laughed off as a joke, overtook Tesla last year in global sales, is building new factories around the world and in March reached a market value greater than that of Ford, GM and Volkswagen combined. China is charging ahead in drug discoveries, especially cancer treatments, and installed more industrial robots in 2023 than the rest of the world combined. In semiconductors, the vital commodity of this century and a longtime weak point for China, it is building a self-reliant supply chain led by recent breakthroughs by Huawei. Critically, Chinese strength across these and other overlapping technologies is creating a virtuous cycle in which advances in multiple interlocking sectors reinforce and elevate one another.

特朗普的政治盟友埃隆·马斯克曾将中国电动汽车制造商比亚迪当成笑话，但这家公司去年的全球销量超过了特斯拉，正在世界各地建设新工厂，今年3月的市值超过了福特、通用和大众汽车的总和。中国在药物研发、尤其是癌症治疗方面正处于领先地位，2023年安装的工业机器人数量超过了世界其他国家的总和。半导体是本世纪至关重要的大宗商品，也是中国长期以来的软肋。在华为最近的突破性进展引领下，中国正在打造一条自给自足的供应链。关键是，中国在这些领域和其他重叠技术方面的优势正在创造一个良性循环，多个相互关联领域的进步相互促进、相互提升。

Yet Mr. Trump remains fixated on tariffs. He doesn’t even seem to grasp the scale of the threat posed by China. Before the two countries’ announcement last Monday that they had agreed to slash trade tariffs, Mr. Trump dismissed concerns that his previous sky-high tariffs on Chinese goods would leave shelves empty in American stores. He said Americans could just get by with buying fewer dolls for their children — a characterization of China as a factory for toys and other cheap junk that is wildly out of date.

然而，特朗普仍然执着于关税。他似乎甚至没有意识到中国构成的威胁有多大。在上周一两国宣布同意削减贸易关税之前，特朗普驳斥了他之前对中国商品征收的天价关税会让美国商店货架空空如也的担忧。他说，美国人只要给孩子们少买几个娃娃就可以了——这种把中国说成是玩具和其他廉价商品工厂的说法已经完全过时了。

The United States needs to realize that neither tariffs nor other trade pressure will get China to abandon the state-driven economic playbook that has worked so well for it and suddenly adopt industrial and trade policies that Americans consider fair. If anything, Beijing is doubling down on its state-led approach, bringing a Manhattan Project-style focus to achieving dominance in high-tech industries.

美国需要认识到，无论是关税还是其他贸易压力，都无法让中国放弃一直以来行之有效的国家主导型经济政策，并突然采取美国人认为公平的工业和贸易政策。相反，北京正在加倍强化其国家主导的方式，以“曼哈顿计划”的方式专注于实现高科技产业的主导地位。

China faces its own serious challenges. A prolonged real estate slump continues to drag on economic growth, though there are signs that the sector may be finally recovering. Longer-term challenges also loom, such as a shrinking work force and an aging population. But skeptics have been predicting China’s peak and inevitable fall for years, only to be proved wrong each time. The enduring strength of a state-dominated Chinese system that can pivot, change policy and redirect resources at will in service of long-term national strength is now undeniable, regardless of whether free-market advocates like it.

中国也面临着严峻的挑战。房地产市场的长期低迷继续拖累经济增长，尽管有迹象表明该行业可能最终正在复苏。更长期的挑战也迫在眉睫，比如劳动力萎缩和人口老龄化。但是，怀疑论者多年来一直在预测中国经济的见顶和不可避免的衰退，却每次都被证明是错误的。不管自由市场倡导者们是否认可，以国家为主导的中国体制的持久实力现在已经不可否认，它可以随意转向、改变政策和重新分配资源，以服务于国家的长远利益。

Mr. Trump’s blinkered obsession with short-term Band-Aids like tariffs, while actively undermining what makes America strong, will only hasten the onset of a Chinese-dominated world.

特朗普对关税等短期权宜之计的盲目痴迷在积极破坏美国强大之本，同时只会让一个由中国主导的世界更快到来。

If each nation’s current trajectory holds, China will likely end up completely dominating high-end manufacturing, from cars and chips to M.R.I. machines and commercial jets. The battle for A.I. supremacy will be fought not between the United States and China but between high-tech Chinese cities like Shenzhen and Hangzhou. Chinese factories around the world will reconfigure supply chains with China at the center, as the world’s pre-eminent technological and economic superpower.

如果两国都按照目前的轨迹发展下去，中国很可能最终完全主导高端制造业，从汽车、芯片到核磁共振成像仪和商用飞机。人工智能霸主之争将不是在美国和中国之间展开，而是在深圳和杭州等中国高科技城市之间展开。作为卓越的世界技术和经济超级大国，中国的工厂将遍布世界各地，并将以中国为中心重新配置供应链。

America, by contrast, may end up as a profoundly diminished nation. Sheltered behind tariff walls, its companies will sell almost exclusively to domestic consumers. The loss of international sales will degrade corporate earnings, leaving companies with less money to invest in their businesses. American consumers will be stuck with U.S.-made goods that are of middling quality but more expensive than global products, owing to higher U.S. manufacturing costs. Working families will face rising inflation and stagnant incomes. Traditional high-value industries such as car manufacturing and pharmaceuticals are already being lost to China; the important industries of the future will follow. Imagine Detroit or Cleveland on a national scale.

相比之下，美国可能最终会成为一个严重衰落的国家。在关税壁垒的庇护下，美国企业将几乎只向国内消费者销售产品。国际销售的损失将降低企业的收益，使企业用于投资业务的资金减少。由于美国制造成本的上升，美国消费者将只能购买质量中等但比全球产品更贵的美国产品。工薪家庭将面临不断上升的通货膨胀和收入停滞。汽车制造业和制药业等传统高价值产业已流向中国；未来的重要行业也会随之流失。想象一下全国范围内都出现底特律或克利夫兰那样的情形。

Avoiding that grim scenario means making policy choices — today — that should be obvious and already have bipartisan support: investing in research and development; supporting academic, scientific and corporate innovation; forging economic ties with countries around the world; and creating a welcoming and attractive climate for international talent and capital. Yet the Trump administration is doing the opposite in each of those areas.

要避免这种严峻的局面，就意味着要做出本应显而易见并已得到两党支持的政策选择——今天就做：投资研发；支持学术、科技和企业创新；与世界各国建立经济联系；为国际人才和资本创造一个友好、有吸引力的环境。然而，特朗普政府在这些领域的做法恰恰相反。

Whether this century will be Chinese or American is up to us. But the time to change course is quickly running out.

本世纪究竟属于中国还是美国，这取决于我们。但是，改变方向的时间已经不多。