In The World According to China, Liz Economy lights up General Secretary Xi Jinping’s strategic ambition to “lead in the reform of the global governance system.”

Why would Xi want to upend the system that produced general conditions of global peace for decades, whose conditions protected opportunities for China to raise the standards of living for hundreds of millions of its people?

Considering one foundational force helps answer the question. Xi is pushing to expand his personal imperialistic powers. Broadly, imperialism reflects the outward facing efforts of autocratic and totalitarian regimes. Imperialism uses state power for conquest and occupation of territories to control resources.

In contrast—and still broadly—capitalism turns away from historically repeated imperialistic choices and towards systems of laws to determine the distribution of resources. Rather than control over tools for conquest and oppression, capitalistic systems reward control over cash to command the allocation of resources.

Again generally, domestic governance systems that protect individuals’ rights of expression, creation, and decision create larger caches of surplus capital than those that oppress individuals’ rights. Xi’s regime does the latter and suffers capital shortages as a result. His totalitarian governance disadvantages his China. In a rules-based international order, Xi is a loser.

Liz turns her astute brilliance back on us and says what Americans should do (rephrased): live up to our own declarations of faith in democracy.