The idea that China will overtake the United States of America as the dominant world power has grown in strength throughout the years, but it is largely a myth. China has neither the capacity nor the will to lead the world and is seemingly perfectly happy living and growing with America at the head of the table of nations. Here’s why:
Let’s pretend for a minute that China wants to become more than a regional power. It is incredibly limited by the realities created by more than 70 years of American democratic and capitalistic influence being infused into the government systems of the majority of the nations on Earth.
To its east: one of America’s closest allies and a nation literally reborn in the image of the West after World War II, Japan, where thousands of American troops are currently stationed.
To its north: a graying bear and part-time Chinese ally in Russia, which Bard College professor Russell Mead said is like “France pining for Napoleonic glory, except bigger, uglier, meaner.” In other words, they are not the best friends to count on.
To its south: an unstable and starving North Korea, which China is constantly forced to embarrassingly defend on the global stage, strong and fiercely democratic South Korea. Democratizing Indonesia, and democratic Australia and New Zealand. Not to mention the hurting but pro-American power of nearly 100 million, the Philippines.
To its west: China has to contend with the world’s biggest democracy, India, a democratizing Nepal (who just had elections that rejected hard-line Maoists from power) and a democratic Bangladesh. In fact, in the entire region of South Asia from Pakistan to Bhutan and back again, around 1.6 billion people now live in democratic countries.
Even Sri Lanka, a nation that lost roughly 40,000 people in a brutal civil war that ended in 2009, is being shamed by the international community, especially in a valiant effort from the British prime minister and “special relationship” partner David Cameron, to embrace total democracy.
Why are all these nations democratic? Because they have come to age under what The Economist calls the era of Pax Americana.
Internally, China is going to have to come to terms with a housing market bubble that is primed for a damaging burst. Jack McCabe, a real estate expert, said there were 14 million vacant housing units in the United States in 2009 after the American bubble burst. He also said right now, China has over 64 million empty residential units. And that’s with a 2013 GDP target of 7.5 percent.
So how can this be? Well the middle class, also known as the people who can afford to live in these residential units, is not nearly big enough to sustain the growth. As a result, McCabe said entire cities like Daya Bay and Zhengzhou have areas that are basically empty.
On top of that, China’s GDP per capita is only $6,188, according to the World Bank, slightly more than the Dominican Republic. For comparison, the United States GDP per capita sits at $49,965. Americans are by and large more engaged with the global marketplace than the Chinese and have more built up equity in institutions and established systems.
Couple those sad numbers with the lack of basic human rights like the freedoms of speech and press in China, plus countless civil liberties violations and laws that do not protect or encourage business innovation or intellectual property.
China has made no real moves to position itself as a superpower on the world stage. It refuses to get involved in humanitarian crises and stands in the way of progress in the UN Security Council. While its form of communism has done a good job of lifting millions out of poverty, it is yet to be seen whether it can sustain a thriving middle class that is not based on an unsustainable growth trend.
In the end, China is still very much a developing country and should be viewed as one. America will be the leader of the world for as long as it wants to be.
Rich Robinson is a junior majoring in telecommunication and film.
