I was amused to read the confident assertion of Clifford Coonan of the Independent that China's eclipse of the U.S. is inevitable.

The rise of China is posing awkward questions for the US, along with the realisation that its days as the world's economic superpower are numbered.

Some analysts see America entering a period of "managed decline" not unlike that which Britain has experienced since the end of the Second World War and the end of empire.

I've heard such sentiments most of my life, usually from the citizens of superpower wannabes (Germany) and former Titans (France, Britain). During the late seventies and early eighties, Japan was supposed to eclipse us. Post-Soviet, Germany contemplated a palace coup as well.

The musings are always taken very seriously by the various European ethnic sects, as they can't help but look to the future through the lens of the past.

The reality of hegemony is that it requires a distinct and unique advantage(s). What unique and distinct systemic advantage do the Chinese possess?

They are a developing country, apeing the example of what and who have gone before. Their progress notwithstanding, there is nothing new here, no new organizational principle, more effective institution or superior technology. They are apprentices of a system in which we are the masters.

Their "success" comes within a system that the U.S. has established and which they are now completely dependent on.

While its understandable that British socialists would dream of a super power that shared their ideological affinity (fascism?), its purely fantasy that nominates China as a rival to the U.S. Perhaps nothing drives that point home that the linear extrapolation of an economic growth rate that has China becoming the number one economy in 2045.]

Just a tad optimistic.