China’s economic miracle over the past 35 years is well documented. It has emerged as the world’s largest economy, although it’s still lagging well behind in world-class per capita GDP. While working in China over the past five years, we increasingly encountered senior government officials and business executives who confidently explained to us that the United States is a fading superpower whose best days are behind it and that the global leader for the 21st century will be China. Buttressed with a certain kind of evidence, this is a beguiling story. It is also a very complex one — and ultimately it is not clear, in our judgment, that it will play out this way.