The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower by Pillsbury Michael

Author:Pillsbury, Michael [Pillsbury, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781627790116
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2015-02-02T22:00:00+00:00

9

A CHINA WORLD ORDER IN 2049

“The guest becomes the owner.”

—The Thirty-Six Stratagems

For more than two decades, the United States has been the world’s only superpower. America’s military is without equal, as is its economy—for now. The world watches America’s movies, sings America’s pop songs, drinks America’s soda, eats at America’s chain restaurants, studies at America’s universities, and tracks America’s presidential elections. Most of the globe’s seven-billion-plus people cannot imagine a world in which the culture, military, and economy of the United States do not affect countless aspects of their everyday lives. Likewise, most Americans have no idea what the world would look like if their country weren’t the leading world power.

It is time to start imagining that world. By 2050, China’s economy will be much larger than America’s—perhaps three times larger, according to some projections1—and the world could then be a unipolar one, with China as the global leader. Other scenarios project China and the United States as dual superpowers,2 and still others predict a tripolar world of China, India, and the United States.3

A factor common to all of these scenarios is that China will be the most economically dominant nation. The U.S. dollar will no longer be the leading currency, but will yield to a multicurrency monetary system consisting of the dollar, the euro, and the Chinese renminbi.4 China will be able to outspend America militarily. It will be able to exert over its neighbors and allies the robust influence that America has enjoyed for decades. And, at least to some degree, China will be able to shape the world in its image.

What will that world look like? Will it be easier or harder for the oppressed to throw off autocracies? Will the air we breathe be cleaner or more toxic? Will the institutions that protect trade and foster freedom be stronger or weaker?

Some of these questions are, of course, unanswerable. Yet one thing is certain: if China’s government retains its current priorities, continues its same strategies, and clings to the values it has held dear since Mao Zedong’s rise to power, a world shaped in China’s image will be very different from the world we know today.

A China-led world in 2049 will be worse if the ying pai hawks decide China’s policies. If the moderates and real reformers take over, with Western help, then a dominant China would not be as menacing. How much we can influence China’s choices between the hawks and the moderates will be addressed in the final chapter. What is at stake if we fail to bolster the real reformers is the world described below.

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