Something puzzling is happening on the world stage. The United States has been infuriating much of the globe by being reckless, erratic and lawless — launching unilateral military actions, roiling the global economy, upending alliances and treating long-held norms as inconveniences. And yet China, the world’s rising superpower, has not piled on with thunderous denunciations and proclaimed itself the responsible alternative to an unreliable U.S. Understanding why helps us better grasp Beijing’s long game.

I spent the past week in China and was struck by how many people there felt differently about this latest American war in the Middle East compared with the last major one. During the Iraq War, Chinese strategists seemed almost gleeful at the spectacle of the U.S. mired in the desert. This time, officials, thinktank scholars and business leaders were mostly bewildered by America’s chaotic policy, worried about it and deeply uncertain about what President Donald Trump might do next.

Some of this is self-interest. China needs the oil and gas that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. More broadly, the country is not a rogue state like Russia. It understands that its growth........

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