By Beijing’s reckoning, the U.S.-led global order is in turmoil, and a Washington in decline has no answers to the world’s mounting problems. Fortunately for the future of humanity, however, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping does. He would like to replace Washington’s “rules-based” world order with a framework of his own—one whose most sacred principle is national sovereignty, or the right of states to govern themselves, free from outside interference. In the world Xi envisions, nations will no longer have to endure Washington’s preaching about democracy and human rights. All governments, no matter how repressive, will be equals, with their sovereignty assured. Xi enshrined the protection of sovereignty as the very first plank of his Global Security Initiative, an ideological blueprint for a new global system that he introduced, probably not coincidentally, several weeks after the start of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. That war has posed a bit of a problem for China’s professed position, however. China’s strategic partner, Russia, trammeled an international border to invade a neighboring country in what could hardly be …