I feel like the narrative of the US being a declining power is way overblown in this thread, the most terrifying thing about the American empire is not its front facing presidents and unending list of problems that people think would sink it, it is the army of cold, calculating strategists behind the scene that sets out the overall geopolitical strokes of the country to dominate both its allies and foes alike. Playing its allies off against its enemy and never having to suffer too high a cost to achieve its aims.
Despite all the efforts of its rivals for the past 200+ years, it has not only endured and prospered, but also remain the most powerful military force for 70 years and counting. We may never get another geopolitical chess master like Eisenhower, but rest assured their foreign department is as shrewd as back in the yesteryears when the US would roll over central America to get cheaper fruit. Now only more subtle in its methods so that they can call on their allies that they will stab in the back, all while they enjoy more popularity than ever in terms of soft power. Nothing the US is currently facing is an existential threat to its existence, neither is any problems that are facing China at the moment.
The chess board is never and will never be fair for China, to become No.1 China will need both hard and soft power, so far in terms of soft power China is heavily dependent on transactions with no lasting allegiance from its clients, its non-interference policy stopping the transfer of culture that makes the US soft power so powerful, ask any Chinese person and they could probably name 100 things from pop-culture that is of American origin, the inverse on the other hand, you'll struggle to get more than Chinese takeaway and Pandas. To replace America China must reform its propaganda arm to spread it's culture around the world, there are a million things that are way more interesting about Chinese art and history that would put the fake qigong and unscientific traditional Chinese medicine cashcow to shame.
If China can convince the peoples of the second and third world that Chinese culture and by extension its government is superior to the Western narrative, it would go a long way towards the aim of displacing the US, no amount of chest thumping and wolf warrior diplomacy is going to achieve that goal any faster.
I would agree that some narrative of the US as a declining power is indeed overblown. Some people were overconfident in assuming that the US military is already an irrelevant force. No it is not. The USAF and USN is still by a big margin, the most powerful airforce and navy on earth respectively. Only the US Army ground forces is not the best in the world, but it is still very powerful.
Nevertheless, the decline of the US is real. But the rapidity of that decline has shocked even the most hardcore of anti-Americans. There were glaring failings that were unthinkable for the US of just 10 years ago. 1M+ deaths from Covid, 0km of operational High Speed Rail as of 2022, 737 Max disaster, dysfunctional politics, toxic wokeism, over-celebration of depravity, etc. The US military is also suffering from shocking levels of decline. There are the failures of the Zumwalt, and LCS program. There is a serious lack of progress in Hypersonic technology. The sudden cancelation of F-22 production. The next generation of USAF twin-seater fighters is the F-15EX, an airframe design that dates back to the 1970s. The R&D of the US military today has essentially stagnated. The procurement cost for even legacy systems is getting mind-blowingly expensive. The combat availability levels of the US military is also not great. About 70% of the F/A-18 fleet is not combat available.
American soft power is ever present today. This is because the technologies and pop-culture that shaped our lives for the last 100+ years are very American-centric. Electricity, telephone, air transportation, fashion, fast food, Hollywood, Rock & Roll, cigarettes, etc. Its impossible to disregard American soft power in our modern life.
But I would strongly disagree that Chinese soft power is little more than Pandas and Chinese take-aways. This is a major misconception. Chinese soft power is everywhere too. There are the Lunar New Year, Chinese calendar, Chinese customs, Huaqiao culture, Chinese literature, Chinese cuisine, fireworks, paper money, magnetic compass, Taoism, Fengshui, Chinese traditional fashion, Chinese traditional music, etc. In almost every corner of the globe, you can always find something that had some ancient Chinese origins. But because these things are not always associated with the PRC, there is a big misconception that these are not China's soft power. Especially in the West. Because to the West, China is the PRC. But to the Chinese and the Asians, the PRC is the current 'era' of China.
I would disagree with you that traditional Chinese traditional medicine is fake. It is real medical science with actual efficacy in some areas. I have used it personally to treat certain ailments that modern medicine could not. Qigong is probably overhyped, but it is still not fake. Both of these have their issues with scammers, but they are not fake.
China need not compete with America head-on for modern-day soft power. China has just no counterpart to Disney and Coca-Cola. China is also not keen in promoting its communist ideology. So China is doing the right thing today by sticking to the basics: just Chinese culture, both old and new. No knock-off American culture like K-pop, K-fashion, etc.
What China can definitely do better is to greatly improve its management of foreign public perception. China have made some major errors in certain countries in its BRI, where it focused too much attention to the country's elite. That disgruntled the grassroots and gifted them to the CIA-NED to influence them to hate China. China actually have a solution to this: the Pakistan and African template. In these countries, China not only entertained the elites, but it also organized institutions and NGOs to help out the poor and people who could be left out. The result? For example, when the US schemed to remove Imran Khan from power, the people of Pakistan, and the next government still continued to love China.
