China is not a threat to American hegemony

The argument, propounded by Trump hacks and pundits from Vivek Ramaswamy to David Pyne, is that China is by far the greater threat to American hegemony than Russia. In this they are surely correct.” Juliet Samuel in The Times

Depends what you mean by ‘“hegemony. If you mean economic leadership the Chinese have already won. The West has long since contracted out much of its manufacturing to the Chinese and this will continue. But if you mean an actual military threat then China is not that. These facts are linked. The PRC needs peace with its client countries otherwise the income will stop. They certainly don’t want that.

Russia is a tottering economic power and now there has been an adjustment to the West’s (eg Germany) reliance on Russian oil and gas frankly Russian exports are irrelevant. Russia , unlike China, has no economic need for peaceful coexistence with the West. Should America continue to support Russia then the military threat is reduced. Bad luck on Ukraine though.

Take these realities together China will continue to have hegemony over America economically. Militarily it may threaten Taiwan but an isolationist America will keep well away from this. In short China is not a “greater threat” than Russia. And a negotiated settlement over Ukraine threatens nobody, except the Ukrainian people.