WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Peak Oil? How About Peak China? “It may be hard to believe, but it’s been a full four years since China hosted the Olympics. At the time, Beijing 2008 appeared to herald China’s return, after a 500 year hiatus, to great power status. Commentators were falling over themselves to pronounce the inevitability of China’s rise and its implications for American influence in Asia. But is it possible we will look back on those Olympic Games as the peak of Chinese power, rather than the beginning of its rise?”