Fresh out of college, I had no work experience. But just being American was enough. I landed jobs at top high schools and universities where I taught classes such as Western culture. But there wasn’t really a curriculum. All the schools and students seemed to want was simple proximity to a person who came from this country of wealth, cultural power and confidence. One school’s annual highlight was its talent show. I sang R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly,” and a friend of mine showed off a skateboarding trick — clumsy tutorials on how to navigate an unbuttoned American way that the students felt was their future.

Things are different now.

When President Trump arrives here in China in mid-May for a planned meeting with President Xi Jinping, there will be the usual expectations of potential trade deals or a reset of an often troubled relationship. But Mr. Trump may want to temper his expectations.

Deng Xiaoping, the former Chinese leader, once said, “If China wants to be rich and strong, it needs America.” But this isn’t the same country that once looked to a U.S. president’s visit as a moment of global validation. It is a country where the realization has dawned that it may have learned all it can from America and has begun to chart its own course.