Beijing, for once, did not see it coming.

The leadership compound in Zhongnanhai is famous for its discipline. Chinese leaders pride themselves on patience, on thinking decades ahead, on quietly building power while their rivals grow distracted or complacent.

Their diplomats talk constantly about “long-term historical trends.” Their strategists study the slow shifts of power across centuries.

Yet Operation Epic Fury has caught them flat-footed.

The confusion coming out of Beijing has been remarkable.

For years Chinese leadership projected an image of total strategic composure. The story they told their own population, and increasingly the world, was simple: America was declining, China was rising, and the global balance of power was inevitably shifting eastward.

Xi Jinping himself said it plainly in 2021 when he told senior Communist Party officials that “the East is rising and the West is declining.”

That narrative has been the backbone of Chinese foreign policy for the past decade. In 72 hours, it collapsed.

And suddenly their narrative looks a lot less convincing.

Operation Epic Fury did not simply strike Iranian targets. It shattered one of the quiet pillars supporting Beijing’s global strategy...

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