Chinese Century


The Chinese Century is a neologism suggesting that the 21st century will be geopolitically dominated by the People's Republic of China, similar to how "the American Century" refers to the 20th century and "Pax Britannica" refers to the 19th. The phrase is used particularly in the assertion that the economy of China will overtake the economy of the United States as the largest national economy in the world, a position it held in the 16th, 17th century and early 19th century. The Economist has argued that the "Chinese Century" has already begun, citing China's overtaking of the U.S economy in 2013, if calculated on a purchasing-power-parity basis.
China created the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as alternative to NATO and created the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank as both alternatives to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. China further created the Belt and Road Initiative, with future investments of almost $1 trillion, to push for taking a bigger role in global affairs.
Moreover, China plans to use the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership as counter to Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Debates and factors

In 2011, Michael Beckley, a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, released his journal China's Century? Why America's Edge Will Endure which rejects the idea that:
Alternatively, Beckley argues the United States’ power is durable, and unipolarity and globalization are the main reasons. He contends: "The United States derives competitive advantages from its preponderant position, and globalization allows it to exploit these advantages, attracting economic activity and manipulating the international system to its benefit."
Beckley believes that if the United States was in terminal decline, it would adopt neomercantilist economic policies and disengage from military commitments in Asia. "If however, the United States is not in decline, and if globalization and hegemony are the main reasons why, then the United States should do the opposite: it should contain China’s growth by maintaining a liberal international economic policy, and it should subdue China’s ambitions by sustaining a robust political and military presence in Asia." Beckley believes that the United States benefits from being an extant hegemon—the US did not overturn the international order to its benefit in 1990, but rather, the existing order collapsed around it.
Scholars that are skeptical of the US' ability to maintain unipolarity include Robert Pape, who has calculated that "one of the largest relative declines in modern history" stems from "the spread of technology to the rest of the world". Similarly, Fareed Zakaria writes, "The unipolar order of the last two decades is waning not because of Iraq but because of the broader diffusion of power across the world."
Paul Kipchumba in Africa in China's 21st Century: In Search of a Strategy predicts a deadly cold war between the US and China in the 21st century, and, if that cold war does not occur, he predicts China will supplant the US in all aspects of global hegemony.