In a remarkably short period of time, China has become a world-class manufacturing powerhouse.

Tiananmen Square. Photo: Peter Morgan
Not surprisingly, China’s impressive economic growth of 9.5% annually, its widespread economic investments around the world, and its rapid ascent to global power, have caused concern in the western world, especially in the United States. China’s growing appetite for non-renewable resources, and its efforts to achieve global hegemony has added to this anxiety. History demonstrates that when a new great power emerges, uncertainty and conflict follow, because the rise of this new player challenges the status quo. China’s recent successes and its entry onto the global stage have convinced many historians and scholars of international relations – Martin Jacques and Niall Ferguson to name two – that China will inevitably become a global hegemon. I believe it is naive to think that there will be such a thing as a global hegemon. No country or great power can completely dominate the world today. However, the closest a country can come to global hegemony is through regional hegemony.
The United States is supposed to be the world’s superpower not because it is dominating the entire world, but because of its complete domination of the western hemisphere. As of now, it has no political, military, or economic rival in its region. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I argue that China will not dominate the twenty first century. Nor will it become the hegemon – the political, military, and economic leader – of its region. I maintain that China, after the slow-down of its economic growth, will began to recede and thus play a much more diminished role on the global scene. China’s history demonstrates that the country is a regional hegemon when it is internally stable. When internally unstable, the country is in no position to project its power effectively abroad. One of the major problems the country is currently faced with is Uyghur nationalism and their independence movement.
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Letting the Rapist in the House: The U.S.-RP Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement
“We Do Not Want Filipinos, We Want the Philippines.” – San Francisco Argonaut, 1902
President Barack Obama during a joint presser with Philippine President Benigno Aquino III
The cloakroom of hegemony can be a heavily stocked one. There are variations in style, dress and material – but at the end of the day, the accent is unmistakable. Imperial wear remains just that, an ominous warning to those who taste it, and those who would love it. In the context of Washington’s move into the Philippines under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), cloaked hegemony is again giving its ugly strut in the country.
Activists who campaigned for years to remove the US military presence from the country now face a reversal of those gains under President Benigno Aquino. That it should be the son turning back the legacy of the mother, Corazón Aquino, would seem to make it a suitable topic for tragic drama. In a more concrete sense, the agreement would tend to constitute a glaring breach of the Philippines constitution of 1987, which disallows the presence of foreign military bases and troops. In 1992, US military bases were dismantled, less to do with Washington’s embrace of peaceful demobilisation than the Philippine Senate’s resolution of 1991 to end Washington’s leases on the bases.
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