Last week, the leaders of the world’s two largest economies gave important speeches offering diametrically opposed visions of the global economic order.

President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech on Friday made a forceful case for an “America First” policy that would defend the national economy from globalization. “One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world,” Trump said, later adding, “We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.”

Three days earlier, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Chinese President Xi Jinping presented his country as a defender of economic globalization and an exemplar of international cooperation on issues like climate change. “Pursuing protectionism is just like locking oneself in a dark room,” Xi argued. “While wind and rain may be kept outside, so are light and air. No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war.”

China is now closer to the international norm than the U.S. on such key issues as trade, climate change, and Israel-Palestine. Is America at risk of abdicating its international leadership role to China, just as the British Empire did in 1945?

Xi’s words at Davos were met with applause by the global elites there, suggesting some support for China’s ascension. “If people want to say China has taken a position of leadership, it’s not because China suddenly thrust itself forward as a leader,” Zhang Jun, head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Office of International Economic Affairs, said. “It’s because the original frontrunners suddenly fell back and pushed China to the front.”