Am I wrong to think that China has overtaken the US as a world power already? Like they aren projecting said power with military bases but is that really necessary? I'd say they really solidified the overtake during covid but there are people here that know more than me.
I think that's the case in practical terms, but there's still lagging perception around the world that US is the bigger power. However, if US has another big crash in the near future then this perception could shift rapidly. A bit of fun history is that USSR gained a lot of legitimacy globally due to Great Depression. The west was blockading USSR economically, and it was largely independent of the western system because of that. So, when the crash happened in the west, USSR kept going strong. Something similar could happen in the coming years.
Didn't the Great Depression coincide with the greatest boom in production in the USSR? Like the 17% annual growth years when the 5-year plans were really underway.
Yup, that's roughly when the 5 year plans started bearing fruits. USSR started seeing mass industrialization and collectivization of farming which allowed leveraging economies of scale in production.
In all aspects but militarily, yes. Although there's an open question into just how effective the US military is considering they've just been stringing together Ls since Korea
There’s also a certain built-in instability in America depending on an all stick no carrot approach. The Chinese method might not involve a shit ton of tactical missiles, but ultimately the properly symbiotic approach to building relationships with the “developing” world lends itself to more influence and power than “get in line or we’ll dub your a state sponsor of terror.”
There is a long-term impact that short-sighted western thinking probably ignores or can't see. On its face, the Belt and Road initiative is one that aims to create ties with developing countries but also lift them up and develop their own economic independence. We know that the IMF and the World Bank use their loans as a way to punch a hole into the political apparatus of the borrower country. They often add stipulations to the loans that require lots of austerity measures, privatizing existing public services, and opening the country up to foreign investors.
There does not appear to be any kind of motivation like that on China's part. In fact, they regularly restructure loans with their borrowers, and have in the past forgiven debt to their belt and road partners.
These positive initiatives obviously will engender a more collaborative relationship with the borrowers and China, and also expand China's own economic footprint. These are relationships that the IMF and World Bank have left on the table for one reason or another. With China presenting as an alternative to the IMF/World Bank, it also acts in taking these borrowers off the table, and could insulate them against western capital interference.
This leads me to speculate what the future looks like as these nations develop in this way. Obviously, their relationship with China will have an impact on their own development. I hesitate to say state that "China will be influencing their development" as most reactionary thought would decode that statement as "bad". However, if we observe the relations that result from the mutual impacts on borrowers and the IMF/World Bank, relations that can only be hostile and regressive, we can extrapolate that the relations resulting from Belt and Road will be the inverse. As China develops these nations, there is no way that they do not leave some lasting impression on those nations, these forces impact each other mutually and by the act of providing this aid in the way they provide it, they are inevitably leaving impressions as they do so.
Now, I don't believe that every Belt and Road member is suddenly going to become some Chinese style socialist project from some infrastructure loans, but I am saying that it'll be harder to facilitate reactionary tendencies against China in these member nations as a result of their mutual relationship. This network of mutual rations with China will come back to haunt western powers as they inevitably have to deal with growing unrest in their own capital network. They may see themselves having to make deals with resource rich and well-developed countries that are not in their favor, and could see themselves on the other side of the economic fence.
There are plenty of assumptions baked into all this nonsense I just wrote out, so take it all with a grain of salt if you will. I'm just some armchair geopolitics observer, at the end of the day!
These are relationships that the IMF and World Bank have left on the table for one reason or another.
Michael Hudson has written on how Western financial institutions treat loans to the third/developing world as tools for keeping the states in line rather than as profit devices. Recoupments get kicked down the road, unless a government comes into power that threatens international capital. Then the loans become due, domestic spending dries up as wealth flows out, continue until the Western-friendly opposition is elected or couped into power.
In doing some googling while writing this comment, I also came across this: The Hypocrisy and Facts of the United States Foreign Aid posted by the CPC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which I am only now just reading, but I feel like aligns with what I wrote funny enough.
The US military can't win wars, but it can kill a ton of people and destroy a country's economy, which is enough that world leaders will still be wary of attracting its attention.
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