New York Times Editor Falsely Claims China “Has Taken The Lead” Over the West

“It’s obvious,” Joe Kahn says after reception in Shanghai

New York Times executive editor Joseph Kahn’s question-and-answer session as published by the Times, with annotations for emphasis and accuracy added by The Editors.

The executive editor of the New York Times, Joe Kahn, has returned from a visit to mainland China and announced to Times readers that “today, it’s obvious China has taken the lead” over other East Asian countries and the West. Kahn praises China’s “orderly and largely safe cities.” Kahn says that “America seems relatively stagnant by comparison.” Kahn’s interviewer, the assistant managing editor for standards and trust at The Times, Patrick Healy, replies, “We see Trump trying to change that, but our reporting shows that the United States is more behind than many Americans may realize.”

I’d been noticing this theme recently in Times news and opinion coverage (see “New York Times Pushes Chinese Communist Party Line,” December 3, 2025.) It escalates the matter to a new level, though, to have the editor of the paper and the “assistant managing editor for standards and trust” collaborating to push this narrative, which is in line with Xi Jinping’s communist triumphalism but not an accurate portrayal of the current reality.

Since the Times is being untruthful with readers about the reality of the situation, let The Editors supply some facts missing from the Times account. Those facts show that, in fact, the West, and the U.S. in particular, maintains “the lead” over China, at least in a lot of significant dimensions.