China's Half Century?

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With the current debt-funding crisis in the USA, where Republicans are resisting raising borrowing over $16.7 trillion dollars, questions are being asked about the future of the US. Is it finished as the the world's greatest economy?

From World War Two up until recently the USA had unrivaled economic power. As Thomas J McCormick discussed in his book , America's Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War and After, the USA spent the postwar period building a new world order. Attempting to avoid the nationalism and wars of the preceding century, It saw a future based on internationalism, where free trade and political co-operation would allow global capitalism to increase wealth for everyone. 

The means to this was the establishment of several international agencies (such as the IMF, World Bank, UN and GATT: later called the WTO) all supported by US hegemony. With America as global leader and policeman, and the USSR as a justification for tough foreign policy, the world was set for properity and peace. 

And it all went really well. Germany was Europe's powerhouse and Britain supported US policy, vicariously playing its old empire role. There was global growth and geopolitical stability. Until the Vietnam War. 

After that the economic and political strain showed in the US, worsened by the oil crisis and American firms losing competitive advantage. With rising cost and falling investment the US lurched through recessions during the seventies and eighties. Consequently the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties came as quite a surprise. With this 'End of History', one ideology spanned the globe, some commentators seeing it as the time for the USA to bask in the glow of Pax Americana.

But it was actually the beginning the end. The Clinton boom years were built on credit and cheap oil while Bush junior tried to boost moral with military operations, responding to the twin-towers attack that proved history had not ended. With the credit crisis, bank bailouts and recession of 2007-8 the US economy was finally shown to be built on weak foundations.

So, as the US turns in on itself, China grows year in year, investing and making international alliences in the way America once did. And it maybe it can prepare itself for its place as a central role, as the new global superpower. 

Maybe now it's China's turn to look forward to dominating the world for half a century.