In a China – America conflict during the time frame you mention it is just as likely and even more so that China could suffer defeat due to several important factors you choose to overlook.
It is indeed possible and perhaps even likely that a US-led alliance would emerge victorious from a major conflict in the 2025-2035 timeframe. But if such was to happen, minus the participation of Australia … what of it? Is the United States going to punish Australia for remaining on the sidelines? Indeed my suggested policy does not preclude an intervention if such is judged to be in the national interest in the specific circumstances that arise, it merely guards against being pulled into such a conflict on account of prior policy and against our best interests. The potential costs to Australia of being on the losing side far outweigh the benefits of being on the winning side.
As for factors overlooked, there are indeed those that weigh in favour of the United States and its likely allies. I grant, for example, that the US is likely to retain a technological edge over China for the foreseeable future even as the gap is steadily narrowed. However there are also counter-vailing factors, such as the fact that the US power projection in the region is based upon a relatively small number of carriers and bases, all of which will be high priority targets for destruction, whilst China will be able to benefit from varying degrees of land-based airpower. We could go on listing qualitative factors all day, but I would deny that their balance weighs conclusively — if at all — in favour of the United States.
The wishful thinking of a linear rise of Chinese power is the most serious case of rose colored glasses I have seen in quite a while.
Projections of China as the world’s foremost future power are not based upon the linear extrapolation of e.g. the last decade. If they were, the projections for 2050 would be for a China ten times the size of the United States, when in fact Chinese GDP is likely to peak at less than 200% of the United States. Slowing economic growth amidst factors such as China’s ageing population and the shift away from export-oriented manufacturing, etc. are all part of the projections being made by everyone in the business of making such projections. It pains me to defend economists, but frankly they are not as stupid as you seem to think they are. Of course they cannot anticipate all future contingencies, but the long-term trends are increasingly clear and resistant to deflection at this point — recall that even the American Civil War was but a speedbump on America’s own rise to power.
And the incessant predictions of the decline of American power echoes as a clarion call to American ears all across the United States.
American power has already declined markedly since its peak immediately following WW2 (although certain technological trends have done much to mask this) and will continue to decline much further in the decades ahead. The trend is beyond America’s power to reverse for the simple reason that it does not originate from America anymore than the decline of Britain as a global power originated from Britain or was within her power to prevent. That is not to say domestic responses are irrelevant — there are certainly better and worse ways of managing the decline of hegemony. Protip: sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and denying that it is happening is towards the ‘worse’ end of that spectrum.
As for serving as a clarion call — the sentiment you’ve expressed here is precisely why I identified 2025-2035 as a period of high-risk for great power conflict. It is in this period that China will overhaul the United States by most measures, and it is in this period therefore that the greatest friction between the two tectonic masses will occur. The period of transition is the most unstable of all: the rising power is eager to assert its newfound strength whereas the declining power is eager to demonstrate that it still calls the shots. The risk of minor issues spiralling out of control is at maximum. I capped the risk period at 2035 for the reason that, if conflict hasn’t broken out by then it probably won’t thereafter: the period of maximum instability has passed
A second and much fuzzier risk period can be located at 2060 onwards: India will likely have displaced the United States as the world’s second-largest economy and will constitute a third superpower whilst second-tier powers such as Indonesia and Brazil will have emerged to full maturity: a truly multi-polar world threatens. Meanwhile, growing resource pressures — fossil fuels, food, water — will create and exacerbate potentialities for conflict.
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