Beijing no longer behaves like a rising power seeking acceptance into an American-led order. It behaves like a co-owner of the international system. And increasingly, Washington treats China that way.Brahma Chellaney, USA TodayFor years, Washington comforted itself with a reassuring phrase: China was a “near-peer competitor.” Near-peer implied China was close but not equal. It was a challenger still climbing the ladder while America remained securely at the top.President Donald Trump’s just-concluded summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing shattered that illusion.The visit showed that the world’s largest autocratic state is no longer America’s near-peer. It is America’s peer.The symbolism alone was striking. Trump arrived in Beijing not as the triumphant leader of an unchallenged superpower, but as the head of a country increasingly constrained abroad, economically vulnerable at home, and struggling to impose its will even on far weaker adversaries.When Trump postponed the Beijing trip from March to May, he likely expected to arrive after forcing Iran into submission. Instead, he landed in Beijing with the Iran war still unresolved, America’s military stockpiles depleted, and U.S. credibility bruised.Xi understood the moment perfectly. The carefully choreographed summit was designed to project parity: two leaders, two superpowers, two equals managing global stability together. Beijing no longer behaves like a rising power seeking acceptance into an American-led order. It behaves like a co-owner of the international system. And increasingly, Washington is treating China that way.Trump’s tone during the visit reflected the altered realities. The same president who routinely berates allies as freeloaders adopted a strikingly deferential posture toward America’s principal geopolitical rival. He praised Xi lavishly, calling it “an honor” to be his friend.Equally striking was what Trump did not say. There was no mention of China’s human rights abuses – not of the mass incarceration and surveillance of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, not of the crushing of freedoms in Hong Kong, not of tightening repression in Tibet or Inner Mongolia. A decade ago, such silence from an American president visiting Beijing would have been politically unthinkable.Today, it reflects a deeper reality: Washington increasingly treats China less as a wayward authoritarian state to be lectured and more as a peer superpower whose cooperation it needs and whose sensitivities it must manage.In Trump’s first term, Washington still believed it could fundamentally reshape China’s behavior through tariffs, sanctions and technological pressure. The assumption was that America possessed overwhelming leverage. That confidence has eroded.China today is not the China of 2017. It has built the world’s largest navy. It has dramatically expanded its nuclear arsenal. It has narrowed the technological gap in artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, robotics and quantum computing. In several strategic industries – batteries, drones, rare earth processing and green technologies – China now dominates outright.Most importantly, Beijing has demonstrated that interdependence cuts both ways.When Trump last year escalated tariffs, China retaliated by tightening rare-earth exports, exposing America’s deep dependence on Chinese supply chains. Suddenly, the world’s strongest economy looked vulnerable to industrial choke points controlled by Beijing.That vulnerability hovered over the summit.The most telling aspect of Trump’s Beijing visit was that both sides emphasized “stability” in their relationship. This is no longer a relationship defined by American primacy. It is one increasingly defined by mutual constraint.The U.S. still possesses enormous advantages. The dollar remains dominant. America retains unmatched alliance networks, global military reach and world-leading innovation ecosystems. China also faces severe internal problems, including mounting debt, demographic decline and slowing growth.But peer competition does not require symmetry. The Soviet Union was America’s peer despite being economically weaker. Britain was once Germany’s peer despite Germany’s larger industrial base. The defining characteristic is the ability to resist coercion and shape global outcomes independently.China can now clearly do both.Indeed, the summit underscored how much Washington’s ambitions have narrowed. Trump once talked about decoupling from China. Now the goal appears far more modest: managed coexistence, stabilized trade and guardrails against open conflict.That is what peer rivalry looks like.The danger for the U.S. lies in refusing to adapt to the new reality. Much of Washington still oscillates between complacency and denial, either dismissing China as fundamentally fragile or assuming America can easily restore uncontested dominance.Yet China’s message during the summit was unmistakable: It no longer seeks admission into an American-led order. It seeks acknowledgment as an equal center of power.And despite all the pageantry, Trump’s visit ultimately conveyed something Xi desperately wanted the world to see: The U.S. may still be the world’s strongest country but it no longer stands alone at the apex of global power.Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.”