From the Malacca Strait to Capitol Hill, the same question is reshaping policy: what happens when a 12 percent slice of humanity can no longer set the rules for the other 88? China’s economy, already larger than America’s on purchasing‑power terms and filing three times as many patents, is backed by a navy built to keep U.S. carriers at arm’s length. Washington answers with semiconductor embargoes, submarine pacts, and a $53‑billion CHIPS drive, while the G7 promises a rival to Beijing’s trillion‑dollar Belt and Road. Yet the struggle is as psychological as it is material. Beijing frames its ascent as the close of a “century of humiliation,” while many Americans still treat global primacy as birthright. Each sees its own moves as defensive: every Chinese airstrip in the South China Sea looks offensive in Washington; every new U.S. logistics site in the Philippines looks encircling from Beijing.
Middle powers refuse to choose. ASEAN opens bases to the U.S. even as its trade tilts further toward China; India buys Russian oil while joining the Quad. Meanwhile the dollar’s share of reserves keeps sliding, and central banks are wiring digital rails that detour around Sanctions‑ville entirely.
Great‑power rivalry is nothing new, but nuclear symmetry and distributed technology mean the first mistake could be the last. The real contest now is which system learns to cooperate faster than events can punish hubris.
