It has been nearly six years since Trump launched the first war against China in 2018, during which the global situation has changed with each passing day, and some people regard it as a major change unseen in a century. Where is the current global landscape headed? If we accept that the world will change dramatically in the future, how should we respond?
Since ancient times, there has been a saying: "Those who know the times are the heroes", but where is the current affairs? We may all be witnessing a shift in the world's trends today.
The core of the current global situation is undoubtedly focused on the two main players of China and the United States. Although many people foresee changes in the world in the future, their perceptions of the current world are also very different due to their different positions, which in turn leads to a gap in opinions. The goal of this issue is to provide you with an in-depth understanding of the current global situation. No matter what position you stand, the situation will not change because of your own wishes"The trend is coming"。
1.The expectations of American politicians and anti-China
First, let's take a look at the views on global change and the reasons behind it.
First, in 2014, Obama, then the United States, delivered a speech at the graduation ceremony of the West Point Military Academy, emphasizing that the United States should maintain its global leadership position for the next 100 years. Recently, the United States has continued to wage a first-class war against China, strive for economic decoupling, and implement a chip ban, which is actually intended to maintain the hegemony of the United States.
Second, in March 2022, Biden said that the world is at a critical juncture, and the United States needs to once again lead the world in creating a new order. At that time, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated, and Biden firmly believed that through severe financial sanctions, Russia would be defeated in the war, and Europe would follow the United States with all its heart, rely on the United States for energy supply and security, and at the same time more firmly support the leadership of the United States. Therefore, after this victory, Biden wants to turn his arms to Russia, and after conquering Europe, the spearhead is directed at China, and finally realize a new global order and regain the throne of global hegemony. What's more, Biden will make a name for himself and successfully shape history.
Former and current Democratic Party leaders have expressed similar views. Although the Republican Trump holds the idea of "revitalizing the United States", he is still an ambitious hegemon in essence.
These views are different, but they all serve the same purpose – to maintain America's global hegemony. Moreover, some ordinary people and anti-China people also expect the United States to maintain its leadership position for the next 100 years – fearing defeat of China and denying that China can defeat the United States.
Third, a Taiwanese green media supporter believes that the United States can continue to lead the world for a hundred years. This means that despite the arguments that the United States is weak and unable to suppress China's rise, history has taught us that many empires have endured a century of glory.
What is represented here is a group of anti-China forces that want the United States to prosper. They don't want to see the United States lose the competition with China.
Finally, in August 2021, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said: "Some people say that the international situation is 'rising in the east and falling in the west', but this is not the case. This statement stands on the side of some people who firmly believe that the United States is irreplaceable. While these groups may not necessarily be interested in denigrating China or supporting the United States, they are convinced that the U.S. institutions are strong enough to maintain a lasting advantage, even if it faces a brief period of decline, but only temporarily. Throughout history, countries that have challenged U.S. authority have almost always failed.
2.Assessment of U.S. Strength
Regardless of the question of the victory or defeat of the United States against China for the time being, we will only analyze from an objective angle whether the US national strength has increased or weakened since the beginning of the new century.
Don't get us wrong about what we say about the United States. The aforementioned view states that the course of history is not influenced by the will of the individual. Our evaluations are based on objective analysis and data.
In January 1991, the United States defeated Iraq, which had invaded Kuwait; At the end of the same year, the Soviet Union collapsed. Since then, the United States has become the sole hegemon of the world. Bush Sr. defined the three pillars of American power: political, economic, and military, and this advantage lasted through the Clinton administration and the Jr. Bush administration.
Each of these three pillars of U.S. power will be described below.
3 The empire's finances are in trouble
In 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan, followed by the Iraq War in 2003. The move culminated its global influence.
But is the power of the United States declining? Compare it to yourself to see the answer.
Although the U.S. military has achieved brilliant results on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, this is only a victory in the early battles. These two wars triggered a huge debt in the United States, which grew from 5.5 in the first quarter of 2001$7 trillion soared to $10 in 20087 trillion dollars.
The main driver of this debt inflation undoubtedly comes from huge military spending, especially the burden of the two wars. It is worth recalling that during the Clinton years, the United States** achieved a balanced budget and even briefly ran a fiscal surplus.
During this period, the United States had delayed payments to contractors. Therefore, it can be said that Bush Jr.'s excessive consumption of US financial resources has led to a sharp increase in the federal fiscal deficit and also suppressed the progress of the United States as a superpower.
In 2008, the United States was hit by a financial crisis, the severity of which can be described as a financial turmoil. The crisis has dealt a blow to two of America's strengths.
First, the United States' strong economic and financial strength and highly developed financial system have not been able to withstand the impact of the financial turmoil, which has not happened since the Great Depression of 1929-1933. Although the 1970s stagflation in the United States can be attributed to two oil crises, the financial turmoil was triggered by endogenous problems in the United States. This portends a potential internal crisis in the United States.
Second, the financial crisis has changed the perception of America's economic superpower. More and more people are beginning to realize that America is not without its failures.
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the United States implemented quantitative easing, which continues today. From 2008 to the present, the Fed's balance sheet has shown a stepwise growth, especially over a larger period.
During this period, the United States abused the credibility of the dollar by printing money and promoting quantitative easing. A number of countries have disputed this and criticized the irresponsible behavior of the United States. In addition, after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, the United States and Western countries launched sanctions against Russian finance, prohibiting Russia from using the dollar and the euro. This move has enabled the United States to successfully realize the "**" of the dollar, which has alerted many countries, worried that the United States may use the dollar as a tool to attack them at any time.
In addition, the United States and Europe have joined forces to expel Russia from the SWIFT system, thereby freezing Russia's foreign exchange reserves. This was followed by a significant decline in the credibility of the dollar. The argument about the decline of the dollar's credibility and dollarization has also attracted the attention of some analysts and economists in the United States.
Finally, let's talk about the tidal harvest of the dollar. Since World War II, the United States has carried out several rounds of tidal harvesting of the dollar. Whenever the economy is in recession or crisis, the United States takes such actions. The most serious of these was in March 2022, when the Federal Reserve quickly implemented aggressive interest rate hikes and credit tightening**. Despite the arduous process, the U.S. harvest did not have much impact on other countries, with the exception of Sri Lanka, which declared national bankruptcy that year. In contrast, Europe has been reaped more strongly by the impact of the situation in Ukraine. However, China's support for borrowing and dollar liquidity has succeeded in making these countries immune to dollar harvesting.
4.The status of the United States is facing a comprehensive crisis
The latest statistics show that the strength of the United States in the military field is constantly declining, and its performance in the war situation is worrying. This phenomenon shows that although the United States' annual military spending is much higher than that of the world's second to tenth countries combined, its military superiority is not significant in the face of a complex situation.
First, although the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) provided Ukraine with a large amount of military support in 2022, including intelligence support and tactical dispatch and command, it still failed to get Ukraine to reverse its battlefield disadvantage. This has undoubtedly had a major impact on the international image of the United States and NATO.
Secondly, in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in October 2023, the battle group of two US aircraft carriers + amphibious assault ships + command ships cannot deter the Iranian camp. On the contrary, it is the Iranian camp that has succeeded in containing Israel and the United States, allowing Hamas, which is trapped in Gaza, to deal with Israel.
These two conflicts are a good example of the false claims that the United States has made that it is capable of dealing with two large-scale wars.
With only rockets, drones and missiles, Yemen's Houthi forces can make the U.S. convoy, which claims to be the world's strongest navy, helpless and jaw-dropping. The United States, with its military bases all over the world and the self-proclaimed guardian of sea lanes, has no choice but to have a Houthi.
Looking at the western Pacific region, although the United States still faces China's strong military strength, North Korea's growing nuclear and torpedo capabilities are enough to deter the United States, Japan, and South Korea from acting rashly.
This phenomenon reveals the gradual decline of the United States in relative military power. Compared with more than 20 years ago, when the US military penetrated deep into the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, no other major country dared to raise objections to the US action, and China and Russia were silent at that time. This situation and this scene can be described as a world of difference!
5.The political influence of the United States has weakened significantly
While U.S. adherents insist that its strong political clout still exists because the country still has a large number of alliances, in fact, that hasn't changed much.
Only the United States, its European Union, intelligence-sharing alliances, and allies of Japan and South Korea have been able to effectively respond to the United States, reflecting the great setback of the United States' position on the international stage.
At the Global Summit for Democracy in December 2021, many countries made it clear that they would not attend; Also at the 2022 Summit of the Americas, the leaders of many Central and South American countries chose to be absent, despite the fact that the United States was the host.
From the Trump to Biden eras, the United States has forcibly promoted its Indo-Pacific strategy, but even so, India has tried to balance the trilateral relationship between China, the United States, and Russia, intending to profit from it. Even more shockingly, in March 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced a return to old friendships, and since then, the situation in the Middle East has become increasingly complicated, which has also led to the United States being helpless on the Palestinian-Israeli issue.
And in Southeast Asia, after three years of hard work, Biden is still unable to get any Southeast Asian country to join the US camp. Although the Philippines was close a year ago, its own strength as an ally of the United States allows it to play an extremely limited role.
Looking at these three main areas, it is not difficult to see that the political prestige of the United States has actually been seriously weakened.
6 Changes in time and situation
What is the current global situation and situation?
It is still interpreted by three major indicators of international geopolitics, economy and military.
At the geopolitical level, China has promoted a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and a rapprochement between the two major sects of Islam, Sunni and Shia. This move tilts the balance of international politics in China's favor.
On the other hand, the United States, which has stood firm among its NATO allies, has lost its former position of being a universal supporter, and its influence is no longer as high as it was when George W. Bush attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. Today, there are many people in the international community who dare to resist the dictates of the United States, including not only China, Russia, and North Korea, but also the Middle East, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and some African countries.
In the economic field, in addition to the outstanding performance of the virtual economy such as finance, the data of the real economy in the United States have generally declined. For example, in 2023, foreign trade will shrink, electricity consumption will decline, federal fiscal revenue will decline, and personal income tax revenue will decline. A slight decline in foreign trade alone has weakened the United States' international competitiveness. Since the United States enacted Article 301 of the ** Law in 1974, no matter how fierce the dispute is, it has been tried and tested repeatedly with Article 301.
The reason is that no one wants to anger the United States, which has the world's largest imports. At this stage, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan have succumbed to US pressure, and only the European Union can confront them. However, by 2023, U.S. exports will decrease by $39.2 billion, imports will decrease by $16 billion, and the total export volume will shrink by $55.2 billion. China, on the other hand, despite the challenges, saw a year-on-year increase of 02%, up to 4176 trillion yuan, becoming the world's largest country in terms of goods. As goods from China and the United States continue to grow, China's economic influence will also increase significantly. At this time, in the financial and service sectors, there are clear signs of US dependence; China is also actively seeking to expand its influence in this area.
The United States urges countries to get rid of their economic dependence on China, but it is clear that in the economic field, the times and the situation are gradually tilting in favor of China.
As for the military level, in the past ten years, China has increased its speed at an astonishing rate, and it has led the United States in many fields, such as hypersonic missiles, stealth fighters, medium-range anti-ship ballistic missiles, and the speed of naval shipbuilding.
At present, China and the United States are fiercely competing over the sixth-generation fighter. Although the jury is still out on the performance of this fighter, it is worth noting that the United States has always had an advantage in the field of military technology, and this time it is remarkable that it is on par with China, which has never happened in the world since the end of the Cold War.
The change in the military landscape seems to be tilted in favor of China.
7.Conclusion
Today, the pattern has become clearer, and the international situation has gradually moved away from the dominance of the United States.
The purpose of this creation is to warn everyone not to misjudge the situation and avoid blindly following the international **. For the descendants of Yan and Huang living overseas and the Taiwan compatriots on the treasure island, this move is particularly crucial.
The war between China and the United States, economic decoupling, the battle for chip technology, the Ukraine crisis and the dispute in Palestine have all caused confusion in the world.
In fact, we need to be aware of the times and the situation, and we don't have to take our positions as dogma. May you have a clearer understanding after this.
That's it for today, and I look forward to meeting you next time.