When the dinner was over, as I watched Obama introduce each of his staffers to Xi, it occurred to me that I was looking at the most powerful man in the world who was not—for the first time in a long time—an American president. And Xi had none of the sense of defensiveness and grievance that characterized interactions with Putin. This was a guy who was totally comfortable sitting at the top of the pyramid, methodically asserting his power over more than a billion people, refining a totalitarian system, waiting out, strong-arming, or steamrolling the next obstacle in front of him.
