As presidents Obama and Xi are now meeting in California for a “blue sky” chat, America and China have come closest to forming a G-2. Even if it is never formalized—and it probably will not be—regular Sino-U.S. summits are indispensable for global stability and prosperity. China has risen to the level when it is no longer a thing unto itself; it has achieved global presence and will need to assume a fair portion of responsibility for running the world. Beijing will not accept this responsibility from Washington’s hands, as a stakeholder in a U.S.-dominated system, but it will gradually but steadily broaden its international horizons, even if the leadership’s focus for decades to come will stay at home.

Many fear China’s rise because of the challenge that its authoritarian system, based on a fast growing economy, poses to the West and the U.S. domination of global politics. In fact, such competition is welcome. Without an outside challenge to the consensus in Washington or in Brussels, that consensus is likely to degenerate into complacency and lead to decay. Thus, the China challenge can be salutary. It is doubly welcome because competition is having an increasing impact on China. The more the Chinese are looking not from where they started their reforms but where they want to be, the more clearly they see the problems in their own system.