It is not often that the world’s two superpowers hold state-of-the-nation addresses back-to-back. But thanks to a quirk of scheduling and the magic of time zones, it happened this week. Li Qiang, China’s prime minister, gave his annual report to the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, in Beijing on March 5th. A few minutes later, President Donald Trump began a fiery speech to a joint session of Congress in Washington. The contrast was instructive.
