Print this article Chinese officials want to seize the mantle of the world’s “only” superpower from the United States, a four-star U.S. Air Force general is warning Washington's Indo-Pacific allies. “They don’t believe there can be multiple superpowers, they believe that there can only be one, and they want to return back to the glory days of [imperial] China where everybody else was a vassal state and everybody [kowtowed] to the emperor,” U.S. Pacific Air Forces Command chief Kenneth Wilsbach told reporters Friday. “And the emperor now is the Chinese Communist Party.” Wilsbach delivered that warning just days after Malaysian forces intercepted 16 Chinese People’s Liberation Army planes, although Chinese officials denied entering Malaysian airspace. That incident is just the latest example of friction between Beijing and neighboring governments, as Chinese officials are prosecuting border disputes with Japan and the Philippines, while the PLA’S saber-rattling around Taiwan has raised fears that Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping might try to invade the island democracy.