Also, I think US policymakers probably do think a little harder about making any move that could lead to a nasty downward spiral in US-China relations given the huge direct investments there. I just read an interesting empirical paper by Ed Wolff on industrial leadership. From 1970-1993, out of 5 "hi-tech" industries as measured by OECD (R&D share of sales at least 1.5 times the avg industry), the US had the lead (highest production share relative to world GDP share) in only one: Aircraft - where the US lead was huge. Of course, since 1993 the story has completely changed because of Airbus. One could go on....
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Yes, this is similar to the point I try to make -- from time to time -- when I say it's not insignificant (though I think the full significance is not yet fully understood) that there's practically no area of the modern enterprise in which Americans possess a monopoly of expertise.
When you remove military hardware and exotica such as space probes from the mix, you're left with a truly multipolar world -- speaking strictly about technological and industrial ability. Of course, as many are quick to remind us, the US still retains command and control of very important elements of the world game -- such as financial flows and, as the Pentagon puts it *power projection*. Still, if you're looking for indications of decline as part of an effort to understand what *imperialism* means in the early 21st century, you must consider the spread of technical expertise around the planet.
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On China...an interesting (at least to me) moment heard on the radio.
Last week, I listened to a BBC reporter interview Britain's Foreign Office Minister about China's human rights record. At one point, the interviewer asked the Minister if, in light of continued reports of abuse, it might be time for the West to *isolate* China (sanctions and so on). His response was very interesting. There was a good amount of word dancing but what it came down to in the end was that the West's dependence upon China as a manufacturing center and growing market made any talk of isolation useless. *We believe in constructively engaging Beijing* he said, as if there was a choice.
So despite China's smaller footprint on the world stage -- when compared to Washington's -- the usual weapons the West can bring to bear against a less powerful state (the sort that killed so many Iraqis in the years before invasion) are not on the table. This changes the balance of power in interesting and subtle ways. A comparison of GDPs and other factors tells us that Washington is, in fact and on paper, more *powerful* than Beijing. Yet Washington's freedom of movement -- even in the financial area where conventional thought has it holding nearly all the cards -- now appears to be very limited.
I don't think anyone really knows what this means yet. Caution is needed. We don't want to make grandiose claims about some coming era of Chinese or EU power replacing the Americans (the way many made super-heated predictions about Tokyo's ascendancy to planetary rule during the 1980s). All we can say for certain now is that we're observing movement and long standing structures of dominance are beginning to be stressed in novel ways.
.d.