The US is basically China now. Xi remains in power because he convinced the Chinese people that China needs a strong man to run the economy and protect them from the evil foreigners. Trump has done the same. They’re both corporate socialist countries now.

There is one big difference and no, China is not “sitting things out.” A lot of the brouhaha over Greenland stems from China trying to use soft power to gain influence there. As they’ve done in Panama. Soft power means spending money and Trump’s too simple minded to understand the concept of spending money to gain influence. So US soft power doesn’t exist anymore which is why Trump can only make threats. It’s the only lever he has because he doesn’t know anything about the other levers. Of course his threats only further destroys US soft power, but Trump (along with most Americans) simply can’t understand the concept so they see that as good thing. Hell they’re trying to shut down USAID entirely, should be an indication they don’t understand it at all.

China very much understands soft power and is using it everywhere. So that’s what we have to look forward to… Chinese soft power being met with threats from Donald Trump.