We are at a historic moment. Until very recently, modernity was virtually synonymous with the West. Indeed, the West believed - and still does - that there was only one form of modernity and that was Western modernity.
Clearly European leaders recognize the importance of dialogue with China which, in the present Western mood of negativity toward China, is a positive. Talking is better than silence; though, to recall Confucius, actions are better than words.
Democrats, Republicans, the military and foreign policy establishments, and growing sections of business, are singing from the same anti-China hymn sheet.
The West has long believed that there is only one modernity, and that is Western modernity. The origins of this belief lie in the fact that modernization began in the West with Britain's Industrial Revolution and then spread to Europe and the US. As late as 1900, the West enjoyed a virtual monopoly of modernization, the exception being Japan, the only non-Western country to industrialize in the 19th century. Japanese modernity was very distinct from Western modernity, and still is. But this did not stop the West believing that modernity was singular. When the developing world began to modernize after 1945, the West saw their modernization as synonymous with Westernization. When China embarked on the reform and opening-up in 1978, the West regarded it as the beginning of a process of Westernization.
The West finds it difficult to think afresh in the post-COVID era. China is embracing a new post-COVID era, while the West is behind the curve, still living in a COVID-dominated era of international relations.
Can the West demonstrate the intelligence and humility to learn from its own failures and China's success in governance? The challenge is to understand the strengths of the Chinese political system and find ways of applying them to a Western democracy.
So what does the future hold? America will not be able to contain China. The latter will remain deeply connected with the world. China's greatest strength is the close relationship it has built with the developing world.
A new kind of Chinese modernization depends on a new kind of balance in the relationship between Western and Chinese input. China must place greater stress on its own intellectual and cultural capacity and become less dependent on American influences.
It is important to emphasise that Britain is now in a much inferior position than it was in 1979 when Thatcher first came to power.
The danger of a military conflict over Taiwan is now far greater than at any time since the 1970s. Any such conflict would be far more serious than if it had happened previously as China is now the equal of the US.
Carrie Lam's Northern Metropolis project near the border with Shenzhen is a most welcome development in this context. The center of gravity of Hong Kong needs to shift northward.
Much attention has been paid to the fact that the Ukraine crisis has brought US and Europe much closer together, but all too little attention has been given to India's growing distance from the US and what this might mean for the future.
We can date the beginning of America's rapid decline, now so rampant and obvious, from this moment.
If the 2008 Summer Olympics marked China's dramatic arrival on the global stage, the 2022 Winter Olympics bear witness to the extraordinary decline of US influence over the 14-year period that separates the two events.
One year after Insurrection on the Capitol, the US has tried to forget its nightmare and pretend that all was well with its democracy. But the memory of the rioting continues to haunt the country.
Western democracy is under huge pressure both internally and externally. And the gulf between the relative performance between the US and China is set to grow ever wider.
The historic resolution adopted at the sixth plenum of the 19th CPC Central Committee is imbued with enormous self-confidence, at the core of which is the country's extraordinary achievements over the last seven decades.
There is growing interest in the West about the present wave of reforms in China, which began with the defrocking of Ant, then the regulatory moves against the anything-goes behavior of the tech giants, and the more recent criticism of the glaring inequalities in Chinese society.
The US learnt the hard way that its power was not infinite, that it could not do whatever it wanted, that there were severe limits to what it could achieve. And it has paid a huge price in terms of lives and dollars, and how it is regarded in the world.
While the US has pursued global expansion, China has prioritized its own stability and development.
From the outset the virus was infused with Cold War politics. Imagine if the first case of COVID-19 had occurred at the end of 2012 rather than the end of 2019. Many things would have been the same, but one would have been different. At the end of 2012, relations between China and the US were relatively benign; by 2019 we were in a different world.
America's primacy simply cannot survive, but for America to come round to accepting this will be a very traumatic, conflictual and long-drawn out process.
The West is divided and fragmenting. The authority of the US is in decline, no longer able to get its way as it once was.
History demonstrates that China has a remarkable ability to reinvent itself in a manner that no other country or civilization has succeeded in doing; a testament to the strength, resilience and dynamism of Chinese civilization and its governing capacity.
There is a profound belief in the West that a one-party system is unsustainable because it is incapable of reform. That is not born out by the history of the CPC. It has, more than any other party in the world, displayed a remarkable ability to reform.
Two lessons from the China-US Alaska meet: first, there is a new sense of Chinese confidence; second, US is coming to the painful realization that China is now its equal. But it cannot accept what is already a historical reality.
Political reform is part of the solution to Hong Kong's malaise. But socio-economic reform on a scale that hitherto has been sadly lacking is at least as important.
What drew Europe westward is now drawing it eastward: the centre of gravity of the global economy, once in the west, is now in the east.
The extraordinary events in Washington DC will mark a fundamental change in how the world sees the US. The riot, the uprising, the insurrection, the attempted coup, call it what you will, serves only to underline the gravity of the political crisis that now confronts the US. This event was no aberration: on the contrary, it is a symptom of the country's worst political crisis since the Civil War. One fears it is more a beginning than an end.
China has passed with flying colours, the West has failed miserably. 2020 will be seen as marking the Great Transition, a growing recognition around the world that the baton of global leadership is passing to China.
Americans are now even asking whether its democracy can survive. The outlook can only be described as bleak. Almost 300,000 people have died from the pandemic and the number is rising rapidly. Half the population say they will refuse the vaccine. The economy has been hobbled. The real wages of many will fall. Unemployment is predicted to reach around 7 percent. The financial crisis led to Trump. Where might America find itself in the wake of the pandemic?
This cold war will not be a rerun of the previous one between the US and the Soviet Union. Much as the hawks in the Trump administration would like to reinvent such a world by means of a complete economic decoupling, that is beyond them.
But over the last two years, China has shifted from a passive to a proactive role. The country is increasingly becoming a maker and shaper of globalization. The two most obvious examples of China's new role are the formation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road initiative.
Given the UK's history as the premier imperial power prior to the United States, and the subsequent closeness of its relationship with the US, this is an event of great historical and geo-political significance.
If the US refuses to join Chinese-inspired institutions like the AIIB, the more isolated it will find itself. With each day that passes, it becomes more likely that the old institutional structure will decline and decay, to be increasingly replaced by institutions like the AIIB.