Via Merrick “Mac” Carey, a former senior Capitol Hill aide who is now CEO of the Lexington Institute, a public policy think tank in Arlington, Virginia.
Even though the Western mainstream view is that China is a military and economic dynamo that is quickly leaving America behind, the world may be turning against the Middle Kingdom, and Chinese leadership may be turning to a harsh brand of nationalism as a result. Its recent border clash with India in the high Himalayas and crackdown on free Hong Kong are the most recent manifestations of this.
China’s rise as a global economic power, and regional military power, is one of the fastest in history. China has grown faster than America for four straight decades. It has built the industrial and technological foundations for a rapid expansion of its military, to include world-class capabilities in space launch, and its own version of GPS. China’s mercantilist economics have taken over entire sectors of other economies, including those of the United States. All this has occurred not just with U.S. acquiescence, but intentional facilitation. America first wanted China as a counterweight to Soviet Russia, and then aggressively helped China to get rich, with the expectation that self-government and democracy would follow in the Middle Kingdom.
