The Great Dragon Awakens: China Challenges American Hegemony

Nowadays, most International Relations analysts acknowledge China’s potential to achieve superpower status over the course of the next decades due to its impressive economic growth, which was triggered by Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms program (inspired by theorists like Friedrich List).

Chinese power has also increased considerably in military, geopolitical, trade and financial affairs. Some experts have even contemplated the possibility of China becoming the world’s greatest power, overtaking the US. For instance, Goldman Sachs has predicted that China’s GDP will surpass America’s sometime circa 2050.

The End of American Hegemony

06/10/08 “ICH” — — America has become a pretty discouraging place. If Ronald Reagan was still with us, I wonder if he would again refer to the United States as a city on a hill, a light unto the world.

I think not. Reagan brought America back from discouragement, but it didn’t stick. Subsequent administrations erased Reagan’s accomplishments. Reagan defeated stagflation and ended the cold war, producing a peace dividend to be divided among taxpayers, social programs, and national debt reduction. However, without the Soviet Union as a check on neoconservative ambition, the neoconservatives launched America on an unrealistic path of world hegemony.