The Rise of China (and the Fall of the U.S.?) - TomDispatch.com

The Rise of China (and the Fall of the U.S.?) - TomDispatch.com Alfred McCoy, Whose Continent Is This Anyway? April 27, 2023 [Note for TomDispatch Readers: Just a small reminder that signed, personalized copies of Alfred McCoy's remarkable history of global empires from the 16th century to late last night, To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change, are available to any of you willing to lend this site a hand. Just visit our donation page and, for a contribution of $125 ($150 if you live outside the U.S.), it's yours! As a number of readers of McCoy's book have told me, you won't regret it (and believe me, neither will we!). Tom] On both sides, the talk only grows grimmer. Just the other day, speaking about China, Admiral John Aquilino, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned that "I'm responsible [for finding a way] to prevent this conflict today and -- if deterrence were to fail -- to be able to fight and win." Fight and win indeed! And if that doesn't seem clear enough to you, he's talking about a future war between the planet's two nuclear-armed great powers. His comments were mild compared to those of General Mike Minihan, head of the Air Mobility Command, who recently predicted war with China within -- yes! -- two years! ("My gut tells me [we] will fight in 2025.”) And don't think it's just the admirals and generals either. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, while not exactly predicting such a conflict, Minihan-style, did recently say of China, "We obviously have to prepare, to be prepared to fight and win that war.” That war! Meanwhile, after a -- yes, this is not a misprint -- congressional war game simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the head of the new House committee on China, Mike Gallagher (R-WI), insisted that Washington needed to arm that island "to the teeth." At the same time, the U.S. military is upgrading its forces in the region, its military positions in the Pacific, and its training exercises for just such a future conflict. At the same time, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has turned a cold shoulder to the Biden administration's attempts to restart high-level talks of any sort while, as the New York Times reported recently, his country has begun a significant buildup of its nuclear arsenal. With all of that grimly in mind, why not take a step back from this increasingly overheated world of ours and let TomDispatch regular Alfred McCoy, author of To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change, explore what lies behind such tensions: the rise and fall of great powers on a distinctly disturbed planet. Tom