There are numerous signs that the United States is undergoing a secular and irreversible process of decline, especially relative to China and other powerful developing nations.

The global influence of the US in the military, diplomatic, economic, technological, ideological, and cultural realms is declining unabatedly. In recent years, this process has sped up and is tangibly reflected in the obvious decline of US influence in the Middle East, Saudi Arabias rejection of US demands to increase oil production, the fact that hardly any non-Western countries in the world refuse to side with it in the Russia-Ukraine war, the failure of the US to isolate China diplomatically, and the spectacle that most countries in the Global South choose to be fence-sitters among major powers. Countries around the world, including allies of the US, are briskly adopting variegated forms of de-dollarisation. Despite erosion of the hegemony of the US dollar, the US continues to wield the big stick of sanctions to expel adversaries from the US dollar system. However, as the American scholar Daniel W Drezner points out, this obsession with economic sanctions is an indicator of the decline of the US as it can no longer rely on diplomatic and military means to achieve its strategic goals.

Graham Allison, who specialises in the study of great-power relations, has popularised the concept of the Thucydides Trap in his book Destined for War, referring to the severe structural stress caused when a rising power threatened to upend a ruling one. After analysing a batch of historical phenomena, Allison believes that in most cases, war between the rising power and the existing power is inevitable.

Although the political elites of many other countries believe that the decline of the US is indisputable, most American political elites are unwilling to admit it, or at least they will not make it public. Some of them do not believe in the decline of the United States at all and still believe that the US will remain the hegemon of the world. However, Chinas rapid rise does make many Americans jittery. Most of the American political elites worry that a rising China will pose a pacing and existential threat to their country. It is now a bipartisan consensus among American political elites that to maintain the primacy of the US, it is imperative to contain and thwart Chinas rise.

Regardless of the attitudes of American political elites toward the US decline, whether the US will decline peacefully or nonpeacefully matters immensely to world peace and development. Past experiences are not reassuring. Some scholars believe that a declining great power poses a momentous threat to world peace, especially when it does not acknowledge or accept its decline because it will do everything to maintain its hegemony and the privileges and benefits derived therefrom. Kirchik points out that historical experience suggests that countries in decline are usually the least risk-averse. In the past, the British Empire, the French Empire, and the Soviet Union were not cognisant of and prepared for their decline. Instead, they acted strenuously but futilely to resist any threat to their hegemony. The results were a waste of national strength and harm to themselves. Whats more serious is that other countries have suffered great collateral damage because of the overreaching of the declining nations to sustain their hegemony. Britains aggressive venture in the 1956 Suez Crisis, Frances reluctance to give up Vietnam and Algeria, and the Soviet Unions use of force against Afghanistan are all examples. Nations in decline are often more prone to launch provocations and wars than the rising ones, thus posing a major threat to world peace.

As far as Sino-US relations are concerned, although China has no intention to compete with the US for global hegemony, the US firmly believes that China is deliberately trying to usurp it. Therefore, the US regards China as a heinous, implacable and incorrigible foe. In the view of American adviser Kori Schake, a peaceful transition from American to Chinese hegemony is highly unlikely. Hegemony with Chinese characteristics will not hew to the rules of order established by the United States. Instead, should it become the hegemon, China will project onto the international order its domestic ideology, just as America has.

After World War II, the mainstream strategic view that emerged in the US was that the US should always maintain its global hegemony to defend its interests, security, values, and way of life, maintain world peace and justice, and promote human development and well-being. Robert Kagan, an influential American scholar, cavalierly proclaimed that the messy truth is that in the real world, the only hope for preserving liberalism at home and abroad is the maintenance of a world order conducive to liberalism, and the only power capable of upholding such an order is the United States.

Since the survival of the international order fabricated and dominated by the US is deemed to be critical to the well-being of the US and all humanity, maintaining forever the global hegemony of the US is necessary. In the eyes of American scholar Stephen Wertheim, this enduring addiction to primacy has never ceased bringing serious harm to the US and many other countries. Being spellbound by this addiction, the US will relentlessly use all means to destroy any existing or potential challenger to its global supremacy. Hence, the rise of China or other countries (including other Western countries) is not acceptable to the US.

For the US, Chinas threat to American hegemony is not only massive but also unique. Compared with Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the past, China has a much larger population than the US, and its economic and military capability dwarfs that of Americas previous challengers. As a huge country, Chinas comprehensive national power is comparable to that of the US. What makes the US particularly apprehensive is that China has risen in its unique way instead of following the Western model, thus eroding substantially the ideological influence of the US and even the West in the world. More importantly, in the eyes of American political elites, China strives to replace the US-led liberal international order with an authoritarian international order built in the image of China.

Another unique feature of Chinas rise is that Chinese are not Caucasians. Over the past few hundred years, white people in the West resorted to slavery, colonisation, war, plunder, unfair trade, and other unjust means to control and exploit other countries and nations, realise modernisation, and establish global hegemony. It is easy for Westerners to think that they are the superior race ordained by God and that they alone have the qualifications and legitimacy to rule the world and dominate other races. The rise of the Chinese is a historical change repugnant to the US and the West. Although political elites in the US and the West try their best not to adduce race as a reason to contain China, they still cannot avoid slips of the tongue from time to time. In February 2019, Kiron Skinner, the US State Departments director of policy planning, admitted at the Future Security Forum that challenging the long-term threat of China is difficult because the country is not Caucasian. She elaborated, In China, we have an economic competitor, we have an ideological competitor, one that really does seek a kind of global reach that many of us didnt expect a couple of decades ago. And I think its also striking that its the first time that we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian.

In addition to being conceived as a racial rivalry by American political elites, the Sino-US dispute is also construed as a civilisation confrontation. Well-known American scholar Samuel Huntington in his book The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order, published in 1996, explains how the population explosion in Muslim countries and the economic rise of East Asia are changing global politics. These developments challenge Western dominance, promote opposition to supposedly universal and Western interests, and civilisation conflict over such issues as nuclear proliferation, immigration, human rights, and democracy. The Muslim population surge has led to many small wars throughout Eurasia, and the rise of China could lead to a global war of civilisations.

US political elites, especially President Joe Biden, deliberately hype the Sino-American rivalry as a confrontation between democracy and authoritarianism or autocracy or between good and evil, thus turning it into an ideological struggle. In this manner, the goal that the US needs to achieve can only be the demise of socialist China. Fareed Zakaria, an influential American political commentator, bemoans that Americas foreign policy has lost all flexibility.

For American political elites, regardless of race, religion, civilisation, or politics, the nature of Chinas challenge to the US is an unprecedented existential threat to the US. Consequently, the contest cannot but be a deadly zero-sum game. Unless these political elites fundamentally change their views on Chinas rise, the struggle will only intensify and spill over into various fields and the world. It can be envisaged that, in the foreseeable future, the animus of American political elites toward China will become more malicious, hysterical, and irrational. This is related to their need to save their colour of skin. American scholar Benjamin Shobert is candid in his book Blaming China. He argues that American society is angry, more fragmented, and more polarised than at any time since the (US) Civil War. It harbours deep insecurities about our economic future, our place in the world, our response to terrorism, and our deeply dysfunctional government. These four insecurities will be perverted and projected onto China in an attempt to shift blame for errors entirely of our own making.

To shirk responsibility and divert attention, unscrupulous and unconscionable politicians in the US wantonly play up China as the biggest enemy of the US and a country that must be defeated. As many problems in the US are getting worse and intractable, American politicians will ratchet up their anti-China spleen to serve their narrow personal and partisan interests.

The decline of the US will not be a peaceful process, especially when it faces a powerful, unique, and unprecedented opponent in China. Looking into the future, the US is poised to use all means available to suppress the rise of China. Nevertheless, future developments will prove that not only will China not be overcome, but it will redouble its efforts to unite and fight against the US, making it pay a hefty and unbearable price. Thoughtful American scholar Stephen Wertheim lamented, As time goes on, the United States may find itself overwhelmed and risk a war against American interests. He goes on to predict, If the US applies to peer competitors the same will to dominate that brought it into Iraq, a far weaker country, the consequences will be severe. The next Iraq could well take the form of a great-power war. How China will react is not yet known, but its capability to harm the United States is substantial. In defending its preeminent power position, the United States is assuming enormous risks without appreciating how intensified rivalry could make Americans poorer and less safe.

The decline of the US is not likely to be a peaceful process. Paraphrasing the title of Kagans old book Dangerous Nation might be informative and prophetic: Todays United States poses a danger to itself and the rest of the world.

First published in China Daily HK Edition May 2, 2023