RE: China vs US- |CURRENCY WARS| - by AMATEUR WRITER
I love the examination here, but I think you're missing a few points.
I spend a lot of time examining the powerplay between the U.S. and China, especially where the Philippines is concerned. It's the primary focus of my entire Steemit account, really.
I like the analysis here, but I think you're missing a few points. For one, the devaluation of the Yuan is not entirely a good thing for China, as is evident by their massive sell-off of foreign currency reserves back in 2015-16 to try and shore it up. Also, their status as an exporter is also a vulnerability because it makes them vulnerable to tariffs, which Trump is crazy enough to use against them.
Anyway, I won't go into the whole in-depth analysis here, I'll just say "this is what nearly my entire blog is about." I don't think China is as big a power as everyone makes them out to be, and I say that from living in Beijing the past 5 years.
To say the U.S. is "stepping down from dominance" is a bit overstated as well for two reasons. In truth, we're neither stepping down nor were we ever truly globally dominant. We were just the only world power that was unquestionably regionally dominant, and one of only a few left with global reach at all. Our appearance of "ruling the world" came from doing an effective job of making sure we were the only ones in the world who unquestionably ruled our neighborhood, while everyone else had a threat in their backyard (and it didn't have to be us, nor did any of the parties involved have to like us, so long as they had to worry about each other).
As for China...
Well, as I said I think you're overestimating them too. I've got a few articles comparing the U.S. to China militarily and economically, and there's just no comparison. The only way China will ever manage to be globally dominant (and I'll admit they're making a go at this right now) is through the ancient Wu-Kingdom strategy of making the enemies surrender by making it look like it's pointless to fight you, even when your true strength is diminutive. But that image is starting to have some cracks form in it as well.
But China is making a lot of enemies. Sri Lanka and the Maldives have found out that the "Belt and Road" plan is a trap that leads to subjugation, Pakistan is learning the same lesson now, and Latin America quietly nodded and smiled as China offered them the chance to participate in it but then they walked away into the arms of Japan, who has taken over as the leader of the TPP after America (who would have given more than we gained from it) withdrew.
You speak of China offering a "promising future," but not many countries around China see it that way. As China's neighbors line up one by one to push China back (which they're doing now) with the U.S., Japan and India all three backing them up, I don't see China emerging as this "world leader" everyone sees them becoming.
thanks for sharing your thoughts @patriamreminisci, yes you are right about undisputed power from the US, but what I'm saying at the end of my statement is:
The geopolitic sphere of influence is constantly changing. If not China, it might be India or Russia. :)
Well, that's my point. There's not likely to be a central global authority, the way the world is shifting.
America's maneuvering right now is to make sure that when the dust settles, none of the other powers are near to her own backyard while still keeping at least a toehold in theirs.
Russia is going to do what they have always done: maintain a reality where, on one hand, even though their economy will not permit a prolonged war, they are capable of doing enough damage in a short one that no one is willing to fight them unless absolutely necessary, then on the other hand trying not to push other powers to the point where "absolutely necessary" is how they view sch a war.
China... well, they're trying to step up on a global scale and they're making a lot of major enemies really close to home right now, most notably India and Japan, and there's an entire alliance forming against them right inside their "Nine Dash Line." Meanwhile, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Maldives are all starting to balk at the price China's "gifts" have had as they watch their sovereignty being chipped away (or shredded outright in Pakistan's case). They are going to be fighting on six fronts if it comes to a war, and they are starting to wake up to that fact. They'll continue throwing their weight around for a little while, then they'll shift their tune and retreat while shrieking about the "Western Imperialism" that forced them to do so. No one abroad will buy this, but it'll be good enough for home consumption and generate domestic sympathy for the CCP (which is at an all-time low right now), and keep them in power.
People say I'm crazy for this, but I see Japan, rather than China, being the dominant power in East Asia by 2040. They already have a more powerful navy and air force than China (with A LOT more experience), and they're what's called a "nuclear threshold" nation. A nation which, despite not having a nuclear weapons program, has all of the prerequisite technology and scientific expertise to complete a nuclear weapon (or several nuclear weapons) in a matter of months if they decide to (and need I even mention that they are the world's undisputed leader in cyber-weaponry and AI, and running a dead heat with Israel for leadership in missile interception). Economically, everyone is so focused on China's OBOR right now that they seem not to notice Japan is already the leading investor in Southeast Asia (meaning a lot of countries can more readily piss off China than afford to piss off Japan), and after America pulled out of the TPP, they took it over and have been running with it. The Pacific Rim is, from an economic standpoint, a lot of Japanese satellite states right now.
The thing the U.S. is worried about is making sure that China's population, Russia's natural resources, and Central Europe's technological and economic infrastructure (and military experience) all stay separate from each other and none of those three succeeds at bringing one of the other two into their orbit. If that happened, all of Eurasia would be under the dominion of one major player and it would be a threat not just to our power but to our existence.
George Friedman (an intelligence analyst who has made some rather absurd predictions on a few occasions but has been right more often than he has been wrong) has an interesting list of who he thinks the four dominant players will be by 2050.
I won't say who, but it's interesting to note that neither China nor Russia is on the list, and the only Western power to make his list-of-four is the U.S.
Anyway, that's all speculation, but unless China manages some really slick diplomatic maneuvering in a short maneuvering window of the next few years, I see them crashing hard in the early 2020's. They're on the brink of war with more than 10 countries right now (12 if you count internal rebellions as countries), but there's not a single soldier in the PLA with an hour of heavy combat experience and China knows it. The next few years will be about how much they can grab before a "new normal" settles in.