American hegemony may not last. Indications point to china as being on a collision course w usa interests. China is moving into africa, south america, canada and siberia for oil and natural resources. China has ten cities of a million each. That's a lot of man/woman power. And chinese are industrious, fairly smart, fairly well grounded and tough.
Of course it MAY not last. A decisive conflict with China is no doubt in our future at some point, you are right. I am just curious as to the knee-jerk reaction that says, "American power is evil and must be stopped." I mean we are no worse than anybody else that is in a position to control the world, and better than quite a few, at least in terms of personal liberty, wealth production, etc. If we don't do it, somebody else WILL - like China.
As to competition with China:
I think that the hole in china's armor is it's attempt to overcontrol everything. For instance, they do not acknowledge AIDS as a problem among them, hence they are in real danger of sub-Saharan numbers in terms of casualties. (There are photographs of mass graves being dug and hidden to prevent public knowledge of the death rate) The numbers from Thailand and Bangladesh only confirm the presence of the epidemic among them. If they are still growing in ten years, then I've missed my mark completely, but people are STILL underestimating the plague of AIDS. The future wars in Africa will probably have no native populations to control - as whoever is left emigrates or is reduced to tribal living. I'm serious about this. The numbers of infection and mortality are staggering and still growing every year! Without a miracle cure or a cheap vaccine, the whole world is about to undergo another Black Death!
Their economy is growing by leaps and bounds, but it is still way behind ours. And competition is what spurs America to greater heights. It took Sputnik, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 to wake us from isolationist stupors, over and over. Without the Soviets, we have no reason to innovate. With no competitors, the capitalist system decays pretty rapidly. It'll be good for us. Unifying, for one thing.
If we heard that China had reached Mars, we'd be shouting to go, for instance.
CZAR