Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described China's domestic policies of safeguarding its territorial integrity as "disgraceful" earlier this week, but what's actually disgraceful is America's provocation against the Chinese consulate in Houston. The U.S. just demanded that China close its diplomatic facility there in its latest aggressive move against the country. This action goes against all diplomatic standards and is an egregious violation of international legal norms, specifically the Vienna Convention.

The exact details have yet to emerge, but according to U.S. State Department, "the directive to close China's Consulate General Houston had been made to protect American intellectual property and the private information of its citizens."

This move will have several consequences. As Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on today's regular press conference, China once again urged the United States to recall its wrong decision; if the U.S. went ahead, China would take necessary counter measures.

However China chooses to respond, the fact of the matter is that the U.S.' intention is to escalate tensions. It hopes to create an international scandal that its information warfare agents and their allies in the mainstream media can exploit to slander China's international reputation. Washington might also be planning to manipulate the way that the world views Beijing's potential response in an attempt to reverse roles and misportray the victim as the aggressor and vice-versa.

There was once a time when the U.S. worked very hard to create the standards that have since come to define international diplomacy, but it's now tearing them down just like it's done by trying to destroy the international organizations that it played a crucial role in creating such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Instead of functioning as the "benign hegemon" that it previously presented itself as since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. is now indisputably a malign one that's working to create chaos across the world.

Interestingly, that's exactly what it once claimed that its former superpower rival was trying to do. Former President Reagan infamously referred to the USSR as a so-called "evil empire" for what America claimed were its globally destabilizing activities.

Nowadays, that ignoble label could much more accurately be used to describe the U.S. considering that its actions in recent years have been more destabilizing than anything that the Soviet Union ever even attempted to do.

The U.S. is undertaking all of these dramatic actions under Trump's presidency because of how fearful it is that its superpower status is gradually fading as a result of China's global rise and the inevitable transition to a multipolar world order.

America could have peacefully gone along with this global transition and behaved as the responsible leader that it always claimed that it was, but instead it's trying to destroy the old world order out of desperation, gambling that the resultant chaos will create opportunities for it to retain its hegemony.

U.S. "perception managers" regularly refer to various countries as "rogue states" because of their government's belief that those countries don't abide by the international standards that America itself once set. With that understanding of the term in mind, it can thus be said that the U.S. itself is now a rogue state according to its own definition. In fact, the U.S. has become the most dangerous rogue state in history under Trump's presidency since the consequences of its irresponsible actions are threatening the whole world.

Many of Trump's critics claim that he's been a failure in his nearly four years in office, but it can be argued that he's actually been more successful than even he himself expected. He promised to dramatically change the world if he was elected, that's exactly what he's done.

The catch, however, is that he thought that this would "Make America Great Again," but it actually risks making it a "normal country" again unlike the fading superpower that it presently is since everything that he's set into motion could easily backfire.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)