Script: China can DOMINATE the Century: Future History
Added 2025-02-11 15:28:59 +0000 UTCHow China can DOMINATE the CENTURY
We are in a new Cold War. The War on Terror is done, the gears of history are churning again, and like 80 years ago, the United States has entered a new era of great power competition. On one side is the United States and its allies in Europe. On the other side are Russia and China. But unlike the last Cold War, when the Soviet Union was never truly an economic or global strategic challenge to the United States, this time around, China might just surpass America as the world’s superpower.
So, how could that happen? How exactly might China’s leapfrog of the USA play out across the world over the next 100 years?
This is What Why How and that’s what the video’s about. If you like this sort of thing don’t forget to subscribe and check out my Patreon for future early access of new videos.
Ok, let’s get one thing right off the bat: I don’t really think China will dominate the 21st century. They definitely can if they get lucky, play their cards right, and other countries get unlucky. On the other hand, I don’t think the People’s Republic of China is going to collapse into civil war anytime in the next century either, which everybody always predicts. You can read my extended century long timeline on Patreon.com, but to me it seems most likely that China will rise to be a peer power to the United States over the next few decades—an equal match, but never quite a stronger power. This is because China suffers huge structural issues, such as its declining birthrate and the middle-income trap many developing countries face. Those are domestic issues, but China also has to overcome America’s military advantage.
But there’s a solid chance, maybe somewhere between 10 and 20% if I had to gamble, that China overcomes its domestic challenges, overcomes the United States on the global stage, and becomes the world superpower by 2125.
This is how that would happen.
China is already #2
First, let’s cover some basics. For centuries China was the strongest, richest country in the world. This only really began to change during the Industrial Revolution, when the West vaulted ahead of the rest of the world.
[You can read more about this in The Great Divergence by Kenneth Pomeranz and Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not by P. Parthasarathi]
By the end of the 1800’s China was a failed state, crumbling into civil war and foreign domination for decades until Mao Zedong reunited the country. While the communist government gradually lifted up China’s life expectancy, Mao’s reign also saw periods of mass bloodshed as well. It wasn’t until major revisionist reforms after his death, which implemented a state capitalist model, that China truly began to thrive.
In 1980, China made about 2% of the world’s gross domestic product. In 2023, it made nearly 19%.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270439/chinas-share-of-global-gross-domestic-product-gdp/
In 1980, China was responsible for about 1% of the world’s global exports of goods. In 2020, it was nearly 15%.
https://unctad.org/topic/trade-analysis/chart-10-may-2021
This is important to understand. China is, first and foremost, an economic power.
Now inexorably a large part of this is because of sheer mass. China’s GDP per capita (PPP)—so per person—is about $25,000, or comparable to the fearsome nations of North Macedonia and Azerbaijan.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true
Except you would need to 140 Azerbaijans to add up to China’s population of about 1.4 billion.
This huge population gave China the mass it needed to vault over the United States and become the world’s largest economy again in the past 10 years.
Now a lot of people have a stereotypical view of China as the world’s factory, churning out cheap junk to flood Walmarts across America. But in the past 10 years, China’s “Made in China 2025” program has, thanks to large government investments, made China a global leader in advanced technologies.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-us-china-containment
These include e-commerce, semiconductors, cellphones, electric vehicles, drones, and now AI too with Deepseek.
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/china-next-leap-in-manufacturing
https://www.cigionline.org/articles/will-china-dominate-the-global-semiconductor-market/
https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-renewable-energy
This industrial and technological power is key to understanding China’s global strategy and a sphere of contestation between America and China in the New Cold War.
China is already #2.
The Beginnings of Empire
Rising to power in the 2010’s, Xi Jinping is China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. Alongside all the domestic programs we’ve talked about, Xi has also launched several major campaigns on the global stage. The one you’re probably most familiar with if you’re watching this video is the Belt and Road Initiative: a massive program, involving basically all of Africa, most of Asia and South America, and some of Europe.
China has spent a trillion dollars in construction and investment across these countries, especially in energy, transportation, and mining.
https://greenfdc.org/china-belt-and-road-initiative-bri-investment-report-2023
One especially relevant part of this project for China’s geostrategic future are the many ports Chinese companies have built, including several in Sri Lanka and Gwadar Port in Pakistan. Now, these are not military bases, but these companies are required to help China’s navy when it asks.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/27/china-military-naval-bases-plan-infrastructure/
China does have an overseas base in Djibouti, but so does every country. However, it seems many defense analysts agree that China will soon construct more overseas bases throughout Asia and Africa.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/27/china-military-naval-bases-plan-infrastructure/
But China is also building its military capabilities now.
Alongside growing its stockpile of nuclear weapons
https://fas.org/publication/chinese-nuclear-forces-2024-a-significant-expansion/
and hypersonic missiles,
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-defense-officials-china-is-leading-in-hypersonic-weapons/7000160.html
China is also building up its navy. Just a few months ago they tested out maneuvers with two aircraft carriers for the first time,
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202412/1325175.shtml
and they’re building more.
https://www.popsci.com/china-nuclear-submarine-aircraft-carrier-leak/
And of course this section of the video would be incomplete without mentioning islands. Increasingly, China uses force to bolster its claims to both the South China Sea, where it has built new islands to use as bases
and harassed other countries,
and Japan’s Senkaku Islands,
https://thediplomat.com/2024/01/china-sets-record-for-activity-near-senkaku-diaoyu-islands-in-2023/
where it also sends ships in an attempt to demonstrate its claim.
All of this is part of China’s plan to “rejuvenate” the nation before the 100th anniversary of Mao’s victory in 2049.
2025-2030
So, what happens next?
Over the course of the next 5 years, China benefits tremendously from America’s move toward isolationism and protectionism under Donald Trump. As the United States imposes tariffs on its friends, those friends return the tariffs, increasing the cost of American imports—their consumers then turn to China to fill the gap. As the United States harasses Denmark, Canada, Mexico, and Panama, countries across the world shift away from America and more toward China. It’s not an immense shift all at once, but a lot of countries cement their view of America as an unreliable, unsteady partner.
Meanwhile, America’s mass deportations disrupt the US economy even further, joining together with the tariffs to cause a spike in inflation.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers
https://cmsny.org/publications/mass-deportations-impoverish-us-families-create-immense-costs/
China and other countries successfully frame America’s deportations as ethnic cleansing, dodging Western criticisms of China’s abuse of its Muslim minority. The United States attracts even more criticism on the world stage thanks to its military actions against cartels in Mexico, which the Mexican government does not approve. Major protests across Latin America erupt against Trump and America.
So, the 2020s sees America embarrass itself on the world stage. China helps this along by negotiating several high-status agreements. Back in 2023 China negotiated a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran,
http://se.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zgxw_0/202303/t20230311_11039241.htm
in 2024 China hosted talks between competing Palestinian factions,
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/23/china/hamas-fatah-palestinian-factions-beijing-intl-hnk/index.html
and in the rest of the 2020s China helps along agreements to normalize ties between Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and its neighbors and between Egypt and Iran. Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, meanwhile, is a major embarrassment for the United States.
Meanwhile, more and more countries join BRICS, such as Turkey and Mexico. China, as the wealthiest BRICS member, increasingly becomes a leader of the intergovernmental organization. It definitely helps that China continues to invest billions in these countries in the Belt and Road Initiative.
While NASA has bold plans to land on the Moon in this period, these plans get delayed again and again until being pushed back beyond 2030. China also has its own plans to land on the Moon, but these also get delayed. Both launch growing numbers of satellites, however.
While China doesn’t land on the Moon it does strengthen its military; by 2030 it has a comparable number of nukes as Russia or America. Its navy also strengthens thanks to progress on aircraft carriers. China uses its growing naval strength to harass its neighbors, especially in the South China Sea. But despite what some might argue, China does NOT invade Taiwan before 2030, since the costs are just too high.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AtwXW_iVJ2_50NKnpPgBshj2NUb_uTVf/view
It does launch military actions to demonstrate its ability to impose a blockade of the island.
While Trump serves out his term, Democrats shift farther and farther to the left. Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky takes the nomination and narrowly beats J.D. Vance for the presidency; Trump doesn’t try anything funky afterward, instead throwing J.D. under the bus and ditching D.C. But this doesn’t mean he recognizes Beshear as president; between 2028 and 2032, he faces serious issues with Republican states dragging their heals or outright refusing to implement federal policies. And, outside of politics, the radical right of the country increasingly uses violence as a form of resistance. In February 2029, for example, they nearly assassinate him.
While America faces domestic issues, so too does China. One favorite one people like to point out in the West is fertility. China’s population growth is decelerating; since China, like every country, relies on population growth for its economic growth, this is a major challenge.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/steps-needed-maintain-fertility-level-china-xi-says-2024-11-15/
In response, the government expands existing programs, like childbirth support services and childcare systems, but these don’t help too much.
https://english.www.gov.cn/policies/latestreleases/202410/28/content_WS671f6db9c6d0868f4e8ec5dc.html
In order to get workers where they need to be, China also loosens its domestic migration policies.
Before moving into 2030’s, here are some other important things that happen in the late 2020s: in the Middle East, Iran develops nuclear weapons, nearly causing a war with America. Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine agree to an armistice, freezing the battle lines—imagine the armistice that froze the Korean War.
2030-2040
In 2032, Xi Jinping hosts the 22nd National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Alongside announcing that China is well on its way to become a “moderately developed country,” Xi—who is nearing his 80’s—gives a private speech proclaiming that China’s window for military action to seize Taiwan is narrowing.
China begins a major military build-up, devoting a larger and larger portion of its budget to prepare. Investment in technologies key to the war effort, including microchip manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and advanced satellites, as well as indigenous sources of energy such as a solar power, allows China to escape the middle income trap. It also helps that China’s Belt and Road Initiative has given it a constellation of ports across Asia and Africa to connect Chinese goods to new markets.
Oh, and China also begins a bold new policy to address its demographic crisis: immigration. The government targets its neighbors with relatively low wages, like Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and especially war-torn Myanmar. With China offering higher wages, many travel north to the PRC. These groups are watched closely by the suspicious government and are treated pretty poorly.
With newly inaugurated President Ron DeSantis distracted by an Israeli invasion of Lebanon and a fresh civil war in Iraq, Xi Jinping begins more aggressive actions. In 2033, China launches major maneuvers in the South China Sea, skirmishing with the Vietnamese navy and driving them to retreat. China’s claims are strengthened.
In response to this crisis, DeSantis tries to create some sort of Indo-Pacific NATO with the countries worried about China, but the deal falls apart thanks to infighting between those countries [South Korea hates Japan]. Xi perceives this as the United States continuing along its inevitable decline and retreat from Asia.
In 2036, DeSantis narrowly loses the presidency to Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Violence escalates across the country as Republicans riot against what they think is an incoming communist dictatorship. China sees the AOC administration as a major opportunity thanks to her isolationist, pacifist foreign policy; by this point, majorities in both the Democratic and Republican Parties see the American Empire as a massive burden. Compare this to Britain after the Second World War.
And like Nasser seizing the Suez, countries take action.
In 2038, China instigates a crisis by massing troops along the Taiwan Strait, mobilizing its navy, and conducting military exercises to practice an invasion. Ostensibly, this is in response to some sort of offense committed by Taiwan.
The United States responds by sailing a battlegroup through the Taiwan Strait; China retaliates dramatically by imposing a blockade on the island, prohibiting any ship from landing or plane from taking off, placing mines in Taiwan’s major ports, and cutting off sea cables. China also launches kinetic strikes against major military targets on the island and launches aquatic invasions of Taiwan’s outlying islands, but not the main island just yet. Fierce fighting occurs in Penghu Airport as Taiwanese defenders face an overwhelming force; China wins.
With Taiwan’s food and petroleum supplies running low as the blockade continues, President Ocasio-Cortez has a choice to make: she can either try to break the blockade, causing a Cuban Missile Crisis situation, or quietly urge Taiwan give in. Unwilling to start the Third World War and deeply concerned about American dependence on Chinese imports, AOC chooses the second option.
https://features.csis.org/chinapower/china-blockade-taiwan/
The United States slaps China on the wrist with sanctions and tariffs as China begins the invasion. First it launches a major bombing campaign, knocking the knees out of skyscrapers, destroying anything it can spot that can shoot back, and driving the population fleeing into bunkers or the mountains. Then it mobilizes its forces and sails across the strait. Invading Taiwan is a gargantuan challenge thanks in large part to geography; even with the larger invasion force, China suffers huge casualties—imagine D-Day in 2038.
Even after taking coasts, fighting devolves into brutal urban combat, with both sides suffering many losses.
https://www.cfr.org/article/why-china-would-struggle-invade-taiwan
Months pass as China struggles against guerrilla fighters. But, by the end of the 2030’s, China controls Taiwan. As part of cracking down on dissent, China launches a gigantic “reeducation” program across the island. The most extreme dissidents find themselves on one-way flights to various labor camps far from Taiwan. It will take awhile, but China has begun digesting the island. An elderly Xi Jinping, by now partially retired to just be the President of China, has accomplished a major goal of his.
Since the United States and Europe failed to kick their dependency on microchips produced by Taiwanese companies, this is a MAJOR danger to them. AOC signs several pieces of legislation, passed by the Republican Congress, to direct the US economy away from dependence on China—but it will take a long time.
2040-2050
In the 2040’s, American defense contractors and the few remaining neoconservatives hope the fall of the Taiwan will serve as a wakeup call. But Americans are too focused on domestic woes and political instability. Feuds between Democrats—now socialist—and Republicans—now nationalist—leads to a period of violence.
Elected into office in 2040, President Dan Crenshaw has to balance being an anti-globalist nationalist in public and a defender of the American Empire in private. He’s unable to get Congress to support an anti-China NATO but strengthens military ties anyways with America’s new friends India and Vietnam, and America’s allies South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. Since there’s zero domestic support for sending troops abroad, President Crenshaw increasingly relies on CIA operations or private military companies to carry out America’s dirty work.
One major secret group is Soldiers Without Borders, founded by techbro-turned-defense contractor Palmer Luckey, a fan of Metal Gear. Soldiers Without Borders spends much of its time getting neck-deep in civil wars in Africa or organizing coups in Pacific Islands to combat pro-Chinese governments—they spill a bunch of blood but have limited success.
While China has successfully reunified with Taiwan before Xi’s goal of rejuvenating China before 2049, the People’s Republic faces major challenges in the 2040’s. For one, Xi himself drops dead. Various major politicians compete for power for several years, chief among them Hu Chunhua, but none fill Xi’s shoes.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/communist-party-rising-stars-chinas-093000455.html
Meanwhile, Central Asia suffers a revolutionary wave. This violence spills over into Xinjiang in a series of attacks and riots against Chinese rule. In response, China mobilizes its land forces and seizes a buffer-zone in Kazakhstan. They accuse the United States, not without evidence, of secretly providing weapons to Islamist rebels to destroy Russian and Chinese power in the area.
With Putin dying too, Russia’s government enters a period of crisis. China successfully leverages its extensive economic authority over the country to secure a pro-Chinese heir to Putin, Dmitry Patrushev. Over the next ten years Russian and Chinese relations tighten, with the Russian economy quickly becoming subsumed by China’s. Their militaries share technology too.
Civil wars in the Middle East escalate in the 2040’s. Turkey, which dominates Syria and North Iraq, fights a proxy war with Israel in Lebanon, for example, while Libya falls to civil war again. Refugees from these crises arrive in Europe, fueling a new wave of anti-immigrant far-right governments, including in France and Germany. These new governments set about undoing much of the progress on strengthening the European Union made over the past twenty years.
Before the end of the decade, China is confronted by another crisis: the death of Kim Jong-Un. With the hermit kingdom on the verge of civil war, the United Nations panics over the possibility of some insane general starting a war with South Korea. But, leading figures in the DPRK invite China to secure the peace; it mobilizes its army and safeguards a peaceful transition of power to a new council of communist cadres, who of course are under China’s thumb. This is a major diplomatic victory for China, repairing its image slightly after the Taiwan invasion.
While the crisis passes without anyone launching a nuclear missile, both the United States and China launch more and more rockets into orbit to place advanced communication, surveillance, and military satellites. This is part of the new Space Race, which picks up steam in the 2040s. Both China and the United States recommit themselves to landing on the Moon again by the end of the decade. And in 2048, they both do, within a few months of each other: first the United States, then China. But China quickly outpaces the United States, putting together a pretty simple orbital station above the Moon.
At the 25th National Party Congress in 2049, the Communist Party declares it has successfully rejuvenated the nation and achieved a strong, civilized, prosperous society. With its 100th anniversary, the Communist Party of China proclaims its goal for the next 50 years is to cement a true multipolar world order with China, not the United States, as the indispensable nation. Oh, it also announces plans to colonize Mars before America.
2050-2060
Entering the 2050’s, China has the wealth, strength, and flexibility to seriously challenge American power across the planet. Led by the aggressive new Head of the Central Military Commission, Li Wen, China embarks on a global base construction campaign comparable to the U.S. after WW2. China builds naval bases in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Mozambique, Angola, and Ghana, with the massive Chinese navy patrolling the seas for any threats to global trade—or Chinese security.
And of course, these bases come with Chinese soldiers; Li Wen is reconstructing a mirror-image of America’s own Empire of the 20th Century.
Li Wen is part of an eighth generation of Chinese leaders. Despite being in his late 50’s, he’s part of a group of what western media calls Young Turks: bold new leaders who aren’t afraid to borrow lessons from China’s foreign friends in Singapore or Qatar. They’re also not afraid to challenge the mistakes and errors of the Xi Jinping era, including Xi’s personality cult and his slow response to demographic stagnation. Speaking of demographics, China has successfully avoided population collapse thanks to expanding their visa program importing workers from Southeast Asia. But the meteoric growth of the 1990s and 2000’s has withered away.
While China moves past the personal rule of Xi Jinping in the 2050’s, the United States continues along its path toward authoritarianism. With Congress too divided, the president takes on greater and greater power. And of course, megacorporations like Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple have slipped through the blood-brain barrier and have completely infested the halls of political power. So, American foreign policy is welded together with the interests of these businesses in securing cheap labor and cheap resources. China isn’t much different of course. Both superpowers compete to secure imports of lithium, petroleum, and other key resources.
China has the head-start in Africa and Central Asia, but the United States is determined to retrench itself in South America to secure needed sources of lithium.
To this end, the pro-Chinese government of Argentina finds itself inconveniently overthrown by the military in 2052, which signs deals with the US. China calls foul, but there’s not much it can do—in response, Li Wen strengthens China’s own foreign espionage programs.
The Middle East is also a battlefield in the new Cold War. In 2056, South Asian migrants rise up in revolution in Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. South Iraq, Bahrain, and Iran side with the rebels. While China is split on what to do, the US and EU side against the rebels—they’re crushed by the end of the decade, with local governments warming up to the West. Discoveries of mass graves raises a stir, but the United States has plausible deniability. In private, Li Wen calls the 2056 revolutions a major missed opportunity and insists China’s foreign policy be more aggressive.
He has his chance a year later when Myanmar falls into civil war again, endangering China’s investment in the country. After the success of bringing peace to North Korea, China mobilizes the army and sends it in, joining together with government forces to secure major cities and, of course, Chinese infrastructure projects. India views this as a challenge to its sphere of interest; it mobilizes its own army and occupies border regions too. Tensions escalate until Chinese and Indian soldiers are again skirmishing along their Himalayan border. With both sides authorizing gunfire, the worst fighting in a century occurs. The United States provides aid to India, while Russia provides aid to China. Pakistan joins in on the fun, bombing Indian troops in Kashmir too.
Both sides quickly threaten to use nuclear weapons, bringing the world to the brink. There’s even a moment, only revealed years later, that India’s early warning systems accidentally announced China had launched several nuclear weapons. Thankfully nobody pressed the big red button in response. In any case, very little progress is made throwing anybody out of the mountains. So, in 2059 they agree to a peace treaty and settle their territorial dispute: India recognizes Chinese controlled territory and China recognizes Indian controlled territory, while Pakistan and India agree to stop blowing each other up.
2060-2070
In the 2060s, China continues to construct its constellation of naval bases. But in 2061, maybe as a result of hotter and hotter summers, or maybe instability in the oil market, a second wave of revolutions pass through the Middle East, these ones launched by Arabs themselves demanding a rejection of Westernism and a return to Islam.
Fresh civil wars in Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan, quickly mutating into a wave of piracy on the seas. China joins UN patrols and rapidly expands its military bases in Djibouti and Port Sudan. But quickly, Chinese marines find themselves warding off raids from mysteriously competent Islamist rebels. Chinese embassies get struck by a series of car bomb attacks as well.
Revolution spreads to Egypt in 2065, with the military regime cracking down brutally only to be toppled by the Muslim Brotherhood. While the European Union and United States impose sanctions, China signs a deal with the new Islamist government—a major success for the PRC.
In Pakistan, the military allies with the Islamist movement and launches an aggressive war against India in the Kashmir. The United States backs India, while China backs Pakistan.
But as the United States wrestles to keep the Muslim world out of China’s camp, South America forges its own camp: the Union of South America. While very flimsy compared to the European Union, UNASUR does release its own currency, the suro, in 2062. This marks another step in the decline of the United States dollar, a key pillar holding up the marble roof of American hegemony. De-dollarization is slow, but gradually the yuan becomes more and more important for global trade.
Africa successfully follows in the footsteps of South America and strengthens its continental union. It even releases the Afrique, a digital currency backed by China and a major rival to US and EU backed currencies.
But this success is balanced out. In the mid-2060’s, the stagnant pro-Chinese Russian regime falls in a revolution; after a month of uncertainty and violence, a new government rises in Moscow that pledges itself to closer relations with the European Union. China condemns this as the Ultimate CIA Color Revolution; it suspends all deals with the new Russian government, causing economic collapse in Russia, and sends troops to occupy major cities in Siberia. But this is a major overstep—it causes a major international crisis as the new government in Moscow accuses China of attempting to seize its nuclear arsenal. In response to pressure from its enemies and allies, China withdraws, but takes anything that’s not nailed down.
The fall of Russia causes a wave of panic and humiliation in China; over the next years China doubles its surveillance of its citizens, while the government uses extreme methods against any dissent. The last remnants of Hong Kong’s autonomy are eviscerated, while riots in Taiwan are put down with brutal force.
And, most importantly, the elderly millennial apparatchiks in Beijing launch purges of the Communist Party, kicking out anyone who seems disloyal to Communist Party rule. Li Wen, the face of Chinese foreign policy for a generation, is thrown under the bus and fired, even though he advocated against the invasion. The party even goes after the People’s Liberation Army, pissing off the technocratic generals. While not as brutal as the Cultural Revolution a century beforehand, plenty are reminded of it. This, combined with a decade of disappointingly low growth, results in the birth of a Chinese counter-culture among the youth which views the government as decadent, corrupt, and elitist.
2070-2080
But China isn’t the only great power with domestic instability. In the early 2070’s, American president Theo Chopra rings the alarm bell on American debt, which has reached insane levels thanks to ballooning social security, corporate subsidies, and the defense budget. For the past century it hasn’t been too big of a deal, since the dollar was the world’s reserve currency and American GDP always went up. But by the 2060’s, a generation of anti-immigrant policies, AI replacing jobs, and socialism for the rich brought about demographic stagnation in America comparable to South Korea and Japan. And as I’ve mentioned, new currencies, most of all the yuan but others too, have dethroned the US dollar as the indispensable currency.
In 2074, President Chopra discusses options with the treasury if the United States can no longer pay back interest on its debt, including the possibility of defaulting on more than a trillion dollars owed to China.
These meetings are leaked to the press, quickly causing a panic in financial markets. The panic boils and boils until foreign countries, including China, begin to dump their US dollar reserves, desperately trading for other currencies or scooping up US assets before anyone else can—the US economy explodes in 2075.
The financial crisis quickly spreads like a virus across the world, spilling over into a Global Depression. Europe is hit hard—governments collapse into political feuding, including Ukraine, Poland, and Italy. France and Germany, run by new hardline euroskeptic governments, block any financial help. Africa sees similar events, with white South Africans fleeing in droves as South Africa tumbles into anarchy. Asia too sees crisis: in South Korea and Thailand, protesters topple the governments. Soldiers Without Borders grows very rich by providing security to tinpot dictators, or, if that doesn’t work, seizing their gold reserves and fleeing the country.
China isn’t immune to the chaos of the 2070’s. The government reasserts control over the economy in an attempt to ward off the depression, but fails—the economy collapses. Major protests erupt across the cities, demanding reform. The People’s Liberation Army, believing the country is about to fall apart like the Soviet Union, mobilizes and begins arrests of controversial politicians to throw under the bus. When the government tries to reassert control of the army, the army topples the government and announces nationwide martial law in 2076.
With the Communist Party divided and disgraced, rioting university students, blocked from party membership by millennials clinging to power, ransack party headquarters across the country—the military, resenting party domination over the past fifty years, stands on the sidelines.
America sees similar events play out—Theo Chopra loses power in 2076 and is replaced by a slash-and-burn libertarian who tries his hardest to dismantle the federal government. Riots erupt across the country—in New York City, left-wing militias seize control of streets, returning fire with the NYPD before being crushed by mysterious
With both China and the United States focusing on domestic financial crisis, their power across the planet retracts. In Russia, a new nationalist government rises to power, cutting off plans to join the European Union and marching against Ukraine. In India too, power is seized by Hindu nationalists who turn the tides of war against Pakistan. Turkey is on the march in the Middle East too, taking control of Lebanon from Israel. While the New Cold War is mostly a bipolar competition between the United States and China, other regional powers make their mark too.
2080-2090
In the early 2080s, major change comes to China. Pressure builds in China as the protest movement turns against the military junta, demanding multiparty elections. With the military guessing that a multiparty system would be easier to control than a single-party system, since they could play the parties off each other rather than get bossed around by the Communist Party again, the junta agrees—but it will still retain control in a form of “guided democracy.” The Communist Party has its knees knocked out by military suppression; its leading figures split apart into several competing factions. The military conducts nationwide elections in 2082. As the system goes, local elected politicians select municipal delegates, who select provincial delegates, who finally select federal delegates to the National People’s Congress.
The largest party is the National Democratic League, led by businessman Lee Tai, which supports more reforms toward democracy. Lee calls himself a socialist, but condemns the ‘fake, bureaucratic socialism’ of the Communist Party—you’d probably call him a social democrat.
The next largest party is still the Communist Party—except a splinter of the Communist Party led by Sun Lin, a popular reformer who believes that China has spent too long in the primary stage of socialism and must crack down on billionaires and actually redistribute wealth. He calls it the New Communist Party.
Other parties include a pro-Xi Jinping splinter of the Communist Party, the nationalist Kuomintang, and the Peasant and Workers’ Party, which finds its support among, believe it or not, peasants and workers.
The National Democratic League forges an alliance with the Kuomintang and successfully elects Lee Tai to be the Premier of China. The military’s ok with this, since Lee promises to recognize their honorable and necessary role in Chinese politics. Of course, it helps that the military cracks down on any party that criticizes the National Democrats too much, and begins an intimidation program against Sun Lin’s New Communist Party.
Premier Lee Tai struggles to pull China out of the Global Depression, spending his days plugging leaks in a crumbling boat.
While China transitions to flawed democracy, the United States shifts away from democracy. Years of chaos, political uncertainty, political violence, and economic collapse gradually radicalizes the population. This is the perfect storm for ambitious, cruel men to take power: In 2084, Magnus Teneyck, generalissimo of Soldiers Without Borders, runs for president at the head of the new Patriot Party. Combining intimidation and ballot rigging, Teneyck wins more electoral college votes than anyone else, but not a majority. With the vote split between the Patriots, Dems, Republicans, and Socialists, the election gets tossed to Congress. But before Congress can vote in an institutionalist candidate, Teneyck and his mercenaries seize control of Washington D.C. Half the states don’t recognize him as president, with the military split as well—America crumbles into civil war.
And with that, the American Empire falls.
With the United States in crisis, Premier Lee Tai oversees a major expansion of Chinese power. The Philippines and Vietnam, seeing the writing on the wall, choose cooperation with China rather than resistance. Indonesia, by now a major power in its own right, also cuts a deal with China.
With the US military withdrawing from Europe to the homeland, nationalist governments across the EU lose power to new, Pan-European parties in a major sweep.
2090-2100
Civil war continues across the Disunited States into the 2090’s. Unlike the last Civil War, America is torn apart into several different competing coalitions led by the major political factions, with clear borders between them only apparent in some areas. Radical, bloodthirsty militias are too common—mass violence against civilians occurs dozens of times. But the conflict is frozen, with no faction willing to take the risk of a major offensive—chiefly because the risk of nuclear war.
With the United States in no place to argue, China successfully presses through several major reforms to the United Nations. For one, China and its allies underline the importance of national sovereignty. After 150 years of the West intervening in the domestic affairs of enemy governments, China makes sure that the UN is solidly positioned against such meddling. Which is ironic, because both the European Union and China funnel aid to the Democrats along the coasts, hoping for a sensible, pacifist post-war government.
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zy/wjzc/202409/t20240920_11493896.html
As the decade continues, China’s democracy solidifies. A new constitution brings about direct elections for the National People’s Congress, while references to the importance of the Communist Party are done away with. The military keeps a close watch over politics, of course, ready to intervene if their power is challenged.
There are, of course, major flaws remaining in Chinese society. Wealth is unevenly distributed, the scars of the Global Depression remain, and a whole class of migrant workers have very few rights, if at all. Plus, a century of nationalist governments have chipped away at regional cultures, while martial law remains in Taiwan to squash any secessionist movements. But despite these domestic challenges, China is indisputably the strongest country on the world stage. Unlike the United States in the 1990’s, however, China in the 2090’s has to contend with several regional powers that limit its influence—nationalist India in South Asia, the European Union, which grows closer to federation, Russia, which is awakening from its post-Putin slumber, and the South American Union too.
China has a couple options heading into the 22nd Century. It can try to tame the multipolar world, bringing continents under its sway using its vast but proportionately shrinking wealth, or it can cooperate. Several leading figures in the People’s Republic propose an international Mars mission to help split the costs of colonizing the Red Planet. Other countries definitely seem interested.
But while China ponders its path of the next century, hostile forces are on the move. In 2097, Magnus Teneyck and his nationalist forces launch a major offensive against the cities of the East Coast—in a surprise, the locals fail to put up much resistance, with rival politicians fleeing the country for the UK. By the end of the century, Teneyck has triumphed over his rivals and reunified the United States. He has an ambitious agenda to restore the American Empire.
But what do you think will happen in the 2100’s? Will the United States return to its place in the sun, or will the 22nd century be the Chinese century?
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