When the world’s tallest bridge opened in China’s Guizhou Province in September, a state-run political talk show filmed an episode from its summit to showcase what it called “the remarkable story of China’s path to modernization.”

当世界上最高的桥梁于9月在中国贵州省开通时，一档国有媒体的政治脱口秀节目在桥顶拍摄了一期节目，展示他们所称的“中国式现代化的精彩故事”。

A Canadian influencer on the panel marveled, “You have projects like this the West could only dream of.”

节目中一位加拿大网红惊叹道：“你们有这种西方难以企及的工程。”

CNN and NBC broadcast segments of their own about the bridge, which stands roughly 200 stories above a river. So did Matt Walsh, a right-wing commentator. “Why aren’t we building stuff like this any more?” he asked on his show on YouTube. He lamented that America had “lost the will and desire to do great things.”

CNN和NBC报道了这座高悬于离河面约200层楼高处的桥。右翼评论员马特·沃尔什也提到了它。“我们为什么不再建造这样的东西了？”他在YouTube节目中问道。他感叹美国已经“失去了做大事的意志和欲望”。

It would be a mistake to brush off the story of the Guizhou bridge as simply a victory of Chinese propaganda. The reactions to the bridge point to something deeper than admiration for Chinese infrastructure: a widening imbalance between the self-images of the world’s two largest powers.

将贵州大桥的故事简单归为中国宣传的胜利将是一个错误。对这座桥的反应指向了比对中国基础设施的钦佩更深层的东西：世界上两大强国自我形象之间日益扩大的失衡。

China has been buoyed this year by a surge of confidence, convinced that its governance model is ascendant and its rise inevitable. That confidence often overlooks serious vulnerabilities: a slowing economy, a deepening housing crisis and falling birthrates.

今年，中国因信心激增而振奋，坚信其治理模式更优越，其崛起不可避免。这种信心往往忽略了严重的脆弱性：经济放缓、不断深化的住房危机以及出生率下降。

The United States, meanwhile, has taken a different tone — one that China experts say exhibits defeatism. President Trump’s national security strategy, released this month, frames China more as a business competitor than as a rival for military, technological and ideological power. That is a shift from the views of prior administrations, including Mr. Trump’s own in his first term. Chinese analysts have interpreted the new strategy as evidence of American retreat.

与此同时，美国采取了不同的基调——中国专家称其表现出一种失败主义。特朗普总统本月发布的国家安全战略，将中国更多地定位为商业竞争对手，而不是军事、技术和意识形态力量的对手。这与前几届政府（包括特朗普的第一任期）的观点有所转变。中国分析人士将这一新战略解读为美国退缩的证据。

The document describes China as a “near peer.” It downplays Beijing’s military and technological strengths and reframes the relationship largely in commercial terms — a striking position when China sees itself advancing on every front.

该文件将中国描述为“实力相近的国家”。它淡化了北京的军事和技术优势，并主要从商业角度重新定义了这种关系——当中国认为自己在各领域都在前进的时候，这样的立场显得很惊人。

An official Chinese commentary published by the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Studies Center argued that the “near peer” phrasing reflects “deep anxiety” within America’s decision-making establishment and amounts to a “painful” acknowledgment that earlier U.S. strategies have failed.

习近平外交思想研究中心发表的一篇中文官方评论认为，“实力近乎对等”的表述反映了美国决策层内部的“深切焦虑”，并相当于在“痛苦地”承认此前的美国战略的失败。

Similarly, Mr. Trump reversed Washington policy this month when he allowed the Silicon Valley giant Nvidia to sell advanced semiconductors to China, as long as the company shares the proceeds with the U.S. government. The move, in effect, cast competition with China as a losing battle best managed through short-term commercial transactions.

同样，本月特朗普逆转了华盛顿的政策，允许硅谷巨头英伟达向中国销售先进半导体，只要该公司与美国政府分享收益。这一举动实际上将与中国竞争视为一场注定失败的战斗，通过短期商业交易来管理最为妥当。

世界最高大桥花江峡谷大桥，位于中国贵州省。

A danger is that Mr. Trump, by downplaying the geopolitical rivalry with China, could give license to pessimism about America’s place in the world.

一个危险是，特朗普淡化与中国的地缘政治竞争可能助长对美国国际地位的悲观情绪。

The gap in superpower perception — overconfidence in the rising power and defeatism in the incumbent — could destabilize U.S.-Chinese relations. It makes it less likely the two sides can view each other’s strengths with clear eyes and heightens the risk of strategic miscalculation.

超级大国认知的差距——崛起大国过度自信、现任大国失败主义——可能破坏美中关系。这使得双方不太可能清晰看待彼此的优势，并增加了战略误判的风险。

“Scholars of international relations have long argued that overconfidence and false optimism can intensify conflicts and even contribute to the outbreak of wars,” said Haifeng Huang, a political scientist at Ohio State University. He pointed to how China’s belligerent brand of wolf-warrior diplomacy has alienated key trading partners, including Australia and the European Union. He cited Russia’s underestimation of the challenges it faced when it invaded Ukraine as another example of the perils of geopolitical hubris.

“国际关系学者长期以来认为，过度自信和虚假乐观会加剧冲突，甚至导致战争爆发，”俄亥俄州立大学政治学家黄海峰说。他指出，中国“好战”的狼战外交如何疏远了包括澳大利亚和欧盟在内的关键贸易伙伴。他还以俄罗斯入侵乌克兰时低估自身面临的挑战为例，说明地缘政治傲慢的危险性。

In recent years, the triumphant narrative that China has cultivated in its propaganda has taken root at home and echoed abroad.

近年来，中国在其宣传中构建的胜利叙事已在国内扎根，并在国外产生共鸣。

During the Covid-19 pandemic, global views of China dipped to their lowest in decades. But the Chinese public, its information filtered by a tightly controlled media, consistently overestimated the country’s international standing, according to two surveys conducted by Mr. Huang. The surveys showed that Chinese people believed that China was admired and endorsed far more widely around the world than Pew Research Center and Gallup surveys indicated.

在新冠疫情期间，全球对中国看法降至几十年来的最低点。但根据黄海峰进行的两次调查，中国公众的信息被严格控制的媒体过滤，一贯高估本国在国际上的地位。调查显示，中国人认为中国在世界范围内受到的钦佩和认可远超皮尤研究中心和盖洛普调查所显示的程度。

Beijing could not prevent a crisis of confidence in 2023 and 2024 after it ended its strict Covid policies. The housing market crashed, youth unemployment surged and consumer sentiment plunged. A slump in confidence, largely driven by the decline in real estate values, continues to hang over China’s economy.

结束严格的新冠防疫政策后，北京未能阻止2023年和2024年出现的信心危机。房地产市场崩盘，青年失业率飙升，消费者信心暴跌。主要由房地产价值下降驱动的信心低迷继续笼罩着中国经济。

But 2025 began differently. In January, DeepSeek announced a big advance in artificial intelligence and became a catalyst for a wave of technological confidence in China.

但2025年的开局有所不同。1月，DeepSeek宣布人工智能领域的一项重大进展，成为中国技术信心浪潮的催化剂。

Over the past two months, I’ve interviewed more than a dozen Chinese tech executives and investors. They said they felt more optimistic than at any point in the previous four years, even as they acknowledged that the wider economy was sluggish and that intense domestic competition was eroding their profit margins.

过去两个月里，我采访了十多位中国科技高管和投资者。他们表示，他们比过去四年中的任何时候都更加乐观，尽管他们承认，整体经济低迷，激烈的国内竞争正在侵蚀他们的利润率。

Market sentiment has shifted, too. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stock index, heavily weighted toward Chinese companies, is up about 25 percent this year, compared with 16 percent for the S&P 500. The founder of a Shanghai-based A.I. start-up told me that major banks were so busy working on initial public offerings that it had become difficult to get meetings with their senior executives. A year ago, the banks were asking to see him.

市场情绪也发生了变化。以中国企业为主的香港恒生指数今年上涨了约25%，而标准普尔500指数的涨幅为16%。上海一家人工智能初创企业的创始人告诉我，各大银行都忙于首次公开募股，以至于很难与它们的高管见面。一年前，银行还在主动约见他。

China’s confidence is magnified by the acclaim it receives from abroad. Western influencers routinely post videos of China’s megaprojects — from high-speed rail hubs to astonishing urban skylines — that feed a narrative of Chinese competence. American commentators gush at China’s tech and manufacturing advances. State media eagerly amplifies these voices as proof that the world views China as the standard-bearer of modern development.

从国外获得的赞誉增强了中国的信心。西方网红经常发布中国大型项目的视频——从高铁枢纽到惊人的城市天际线，不断强化着有关中国实力的叙事。美国评论人士对中国的科技和制造业进步赞不绝口。官方媒体急切地放大这些声音，作为世界将中国视为现代发展标杆的证据。

The scholar Zhang Weiwei, whose political talk show featured the opening of the Guizhou bridge, has advised top leaders on how to shape China’s messaging abroad. In July, he devoted an episode to praising what he called the “wise Americans” who, in his telling, have begun to acknowledge China’s rise and America’s decline.

学者张维为的政治脱口秀节目谈到了贵州大桥的开通，他就如何塑造中国的对外信息向最高领导人提出建议。今年7月，他用一集的篇幅赞扬了他所谓的“美国智者”，用他的话来说，这些人已经开始承认中国的崛起和美国的衰落。

“Since Trump’s return to the White House,” he said, “more Western voices have been reflecting on what the U.S. has done wrong and what China has done right. Their conclusion: America’s problems are intractable.”

“总之，特朗普再度入主白宫以来，从各个角度反思美国做错了什么、中国做对了什么的西方人士越来越多，而他们最后的结论似乎都是一样的，即美国的问题基本无解，”他说。

Chinese state media also widely reported a Pew survey showing that views of the United States have worsened this year in 10 high-income countries while views of China have improved.

中国官方媒体还广泛报道了皮尤研究中心的一项调查，该调查显示，今年10个高收入国家对美国的看法有所恶化，而对中国的看法有所改善。

American elites who visit China typically stay at high-end hotels, visit companies that are making money and meet with officials who have survived under the iron rule of Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. A Hong Kong-based economist I interviewed, requesting anonymity because Beijing had warned the person not to speak ill of the economy, said visitors rarely got to meet with people who had lost their businesses or been detained under Mr. Xi. Americans also rarely encounter ordinary Chinese who face economic pressures that might feel familiar.

访华的美国精英通常下榻高端酒店，参观利润丰厚的企业，会见在习近平铁腕统治下生存下来的官员。一位要求匿名的香港经济学家接受采访时表示，访华者很少能接触到在习近平执政期间破产或被拘留的人士。美国人也很少接触到那些承受着他们可能熟悉的经济压力的普通中国人。

7月，上海世界人工智能大会上，众多人形机器人争相吸引观众目光。

China’s advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and manufacturing pose real challenges for the United States. But the larger risk is the extent to which the American psyche internalizes a Beijing-driven narrative of U.S. decline, often without understanding China’s own weaknesses.

中国在人工智能、机器人和制造业方面的进步对美国构成了真正的挑战。但更大的风险在于，美国人的心理在多大程度上内化了北京主导的美国衰落叙事，而往往不了解中国自身的弱点。

What worries some observers most is not China’s rising confidence but what they say is America’s diminishing faith in its own abilities. To Jianying Zha, a writer in New York City who has chronicled Chinese politics for decades, that shift is the real strategic danger.

一些观察家最担心的不是中国日益增强的自信，而是他们所说的美国对自己能力的信心正在减弱。几十年来一直记录中国政治的纽约作家查建英认为，这种转变是真正的战略危险。

“America’s greatest enemy is itself — losing faith in its core values and its fighting spirit,” she told me. “That’s exactly what plays into China’s ancient art of war: defeating you without waging war, because you’ll defeat yourself.”

“美国最大的敌人是它自己——对它的核心价值观和战斗精神失去信心，”她告诉我。“这正是中国古代兵法的精髓所在：不战而屈人之兵，因为你会打败自己。”