중국은 성장의 위기, 미국은 붕괴의 위기.

[다른소리]

함 읽어 보세요..그리고

지금까지 너무나 익숙하여 그것이 전부라고 만 생각해 왓던 것들이...이미 변해 잇다는 것을 느껴 보시기 바랍니다.

멀티 폴라의 시대란 다름을 인정하는 시대입니다.......

미국의 방식, 서구의 방식만이 보편적이고 최고라는  것이 아니고....

각자의 문화사 전통 사상에 따라 각자의 방식을 인정하는 시대라는 라는 것입니다..

이런 시대에서 가장 경계하고 즉각 버러야 할 사고가....비교 하는 것입니다..

우리는 우리가 성취한 경제발전과 정치적 자유에 너무 심취해 잇습니다..

과거...성취이전의 시절에는  비교 되는 것이 그리도 존심상하고 죶 같은 것엇지만

이젠 우리가 비교 하려 듭니다..

..그 나라 gdp얼마나 되??...

..우리 보다 잘 살어???????

이런짓 하지 마세요..

대체 언제 부터 그리 잘 살게 되엇다고 서니....초근 목피 하던 어린시절 다 경험해 본 사람들이 

갑자기 귀족 놈들이라도 된 것인양....우세를 떱니까??.....구역질 나게 

우리의 성취가 그렇게 대단한 것이라면

왜 중국의 성취에 대해서는 또 그리 삐딱선을 타는데??

이 씨발놈드라..

모든 것은 변증합니다...

영원한 것은 없고요...모든 것은 변합니다..

-박정희가 1000불 소득을 외쳣을때....그런 세상이 올것이라고 누가 믿엇습니까??

지금 니들 하고 다니는 꼬락써니가 딱........미 양아치들 같아 보인다는 것은 혹여 아시냐??

아...미 양아치 쐣끼들 처럼 보이고 싶어 환장햇다고??..

지뤌도 참 풍년이다.. 

중국이 여전히 기술과 경영방식을 전수 해 주고....민주주의와 인권과 기독교적 복음과  개인의 존엄을 계몽시켜야줘야 하는 

나라 아니고..

니들이 그런것으로 발전을 이루엇던 것과 꼭 같이 중국은 중국의 방식으로 발전을 이루고 잇는 중이니..

잘난체 쫌 하지 말고..

배울것이 잇다면(없다고??....지뤌) 짱꼴라 산 이라고 애써 무시 하지 말고...쫌 배우라고 이......씨발놈드라..

니들이 미제 욕 까지 배우겟다며  펔큐 하는 것의 1/10000만이라도 심각하다면...

지금의 우리 사회는 훨씬 더 달라졋겟다는 것이 다른소리 생각이다..

대체 왜 미국이 중국과 다른거야.............짜증나게..

같앗다면 미국놈들에만  환장햇던 조샌징 쥐쇄끼들이 참 열나게 중국을 배웟을 것인디...

WILL CHINA REPLACE THE U.S. — OR WILL THE TWO POWERS STALEMATE?

China is beset by crises of growth, while the U.S. struggles with crises of decline. Could this create an opening for a more decentralized international system?

By Walden Bello | October 27, 2022

Recent days have been very memorable when it comes to geopolitics.

The Biden administration issued a National Security Strategy Memorandum that some say was a declaration of enmity against China just short of war. And at the Chinese Communist Party Congress in Beijing, President Xi Jinping warned of “dangerous storms” facing China in the coming years.

This brings up the question: Is the world headed for what is called in international relations jargon as a “hegemonic transition”?

When we assess the situation of the world’s hegemonic power, what is clear is that financialization and globalization combined not only to create severe inequality, but they severely eroded the manufacturing base of the United States. And when we talk about deindustrialization, we are talking not only about the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs, from 17.3 million to around 13 million today, but about the loss of the channels for the generational transmission of skills of the workforce, in semi-skilled and some skilled industries.

Equally important has been the loss of the synergy between manufacturing and technological creativity in the center economies and its emergence in rapidly industrializing economies. Contrary to expectations that the peripheral economies would be limited to providing cheap labor while the center economies would monopolize knowledge intensive activities, high tech offshoring followed manufacturing offshoring.

(아마도 신 자유주의나 글로벌라이제이션을 구상 햇던 자들이 전혀 예상하지 못햇던 부분이 이런 부분이 아닐까 싶습니다....그들은 글로발 사우스의 싼 임금에만 촛점을 맞췃고...뛰어난 기술력과 지적 재산의 효익은 영원할 것으로 생각햇습니다...그런데 그 기술력의 이동이 제조업의 이동 못지 않게 신속하게 이루어진 것입니다...기술은 그 기술을 흡수할 사회의 인프라가 필요하다는 통상적인 관념을 냉소한 것이지요....이런것이 가장 극명하게 나타난 나라가 중국입니다...)

One important study of eight advanced economies showed that high-tech offshoring increased in less than one decade from 14 percent in the late 1990s to about 18 percent in 2006. As Branko Milanovic has pointed out, “innovation rents, received by the leaders of the new technologies, are being dissipated away from the center.” Aggressively reversing this technological flow was, in fact, the centerpiece of Donald Trump and his economic adviser Peter Navarro’s political economy.

 Branko Milanovic -

세르비아계 미국인 경제학자이다. 룩셈부르크 소득연구센터의 선임 학자이며 뉴욕시립대학교 대학원의 객원 석좌교수이다. --위키피아

Peter Navarro

America’s Comprehensive Crisis

But what overdetermines the current crisis of the hegemon is that it is not just economic but also ideological and political.

The British Marxist Paul Mason has argued that with the triumph of neoliberalism and financialization in the global North, solidarity and a sense of community based on economic class and a shared middle class lifestyle among workers was replaced by an individualized identity as consumers, as market players in a society of seemingly shared prosperity but where rising income was increasingly replaced by rising debt as the mechanism of economic pacification.

글로발 북부의 선직국가들의 신자유주의와 금융화의 승리로, 경제적인 계급과 노동자들 사이의 공유 된 중산층 생활 방식에 기반한 연대감과 공동체 의식은,  소비자로서, 공동 번영으로 보이는 듯한 사회의 시장 참여자로 대체되었지만, 소득 증가는 경제적 평화의 메커니즘으로서 부채 증가로 점차 대체되었다.

Paul Mason

Having exchanged their class identity for that of consumers in the market, their loss of even the latter owing to the 2008-2009 crisis left them ideologically vulnerable, particularly when it came to their commitment to the liberal democratic belief in universal equality. Even before the financial crisis, many workers had already been feeling psychologically threatened by the gains of the movements for racial and gender justice, and their descent into economic insecurity was the final step in their rightward radicalization.

What the volatile combination of economic crisis, ideological vulnerability, and Donald Trump(한국으로 치면 신 자유주의에 환장한 노무현이 이 역할을 햇지요) has done is to make legitimate if not respectable an anti-democratic core belief that has been transmitted generationally, communally, and subversively. This is White Supremacy,(노무현교 샤마니즘) which is now informally the ruling ideology of the Republican Party.(노무현 사마니즘이 한국 민주당의 공식적인 이념인것과 같습니다..)

Finally, to the political crisis. I don’t think there would be many who would object to our characterizing American liberal democracy as being in crisis.(한국의 민주화세대들의 민주주의도 그렇습니다...우리는 그 민주주의가 무엇인지를 다시 처음 부터 생각해 봐야 하고....이 민주주의가 처 먹은 뇌물이 뽀록나자 입 앙당 처 물고 되진 교주님 할렐루야 쌩 지뤌은 아니다는 것은 분명하지요) I think the dispute would be over how serious the crisis is. In her book How Civil Wars Start, Barbara Walter writes:

Where is the United States today? We are a factionalized anocracy [a degenerating democracy] that is quickly approaching the open insurgency stage, which means we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe. January 6 was a major announcement by at least some groups…that they are moving toward outright violence… In fact, the attack on the Capitol could very well be the first series of organized attacks in an open insurgency stage. It targeted infrastructure. There were plans to assassinate certain politicians and attempts to coordinate activity.

Now Walter’s profile is not that of someone crying wolf. She is not someone speaking from the left. In fact, she’s very establishment, a specialist in comparative civil wars who has used several databases, the most important of which is the CIA’s Political Instability Task Force, of which she is a part.

좌 우 관계 없이 미국의 민주주의에 심각한 문제가 잇다는 것을 말 하고 잇습니다.

그 민주주의를 배우자고 개 욤병질을 떨고 잇는 쥐쇄끼들이 바로 니들 조생징 들이고..........응??

For Walter and her CIA colleagues, ethnicity has emerged in their global comparative studies as the prime predictor of susceptibility of a society to civil war — and in the U.S., armed white radicals are on the cutting edge. However, ethnicity by itself does not produce conflict. It needs triggers or “accelerants,” and these are the emergence of hegemonic ethnic groupings or “superfactions,” the exacerbation of conflicts by “ethno-nationalist entrepreneurs,” and the frenzied mobilization of ordinary citizens who feel that only the armed ethnic militias stand between them and those who would destroy them and their world.

And to move from A to Z, social media, in particular Facebook, have become a central weapon of radicalization. The angry buzz in white nationalist chat rooms these days is the “Great Replacement Theory,” wherein whites are said to be the victims of an ongoing conspiracy hatched by Jews, blacks, feminists, LGBTQIAs, migrants, and Democrats to make them a minority and eventually destroy them in a race war.

Now the reason we have spent some time detailing the ideological and political dimensions of the crisis of the liberal international order is that when many people talk about hegemonic decline, they consider mainly its economic dimension. Equally important are the political and ideological dimensions. When some analysts speculated about the possible loss of U.S. hegemony to Japan back in the late 1980s, they had in mind only the economic dimension. And while this was the central consideration, their neglect of the political and ideological dimensions of the relationship was one reason their predictions about Japan supplanting the United States went awry.--80년대의 일본의 부상에 대한 미국의 위기감은 단지 경제적인 부분에서의 긴장만 잇엇습니다..일본은 어차피 미국의 제도와 이념이 만들어낸 것이엇기 때문에 정치적 이념적인 긴장 따위 없엇습니다..

그런데 중국의 부상은 경제는 물론 정치적  이념적인 것에 거친 전방위적인 긴장입니다..

To repeat, what distinguishes the crisis of the hegemon today from the 1980s is the fatal combination of severe economic dislocation, deep ideological disaffection, and profound political instability. Global hegemony is difficult to exercise if, in addition to falling behind on the economic front, the hegemon is also nearing civil war and a significant sector of the society has lost faith in the liberal democratic ideology that legitimizes its global economic primacy.

That is where the United States is today.

The Chinese Challenge

Let us now turn to the question of whether some other power is moving to replace the United States on center stage. China is, of course, what everyone talks about as the chief candidate, and it is on the economic front that China’s challenge is strongest.

In his book The Great Convergence, Richard Baldwin tries to explain how China was transformed from being not only an industrial non-competitor but an outsider in the global capitalist system in the 1970s to becoming the world’s prime industrial superpower in just over two decades.

China, he says, was smart enough to capitalize on its having joined the capitalist world economy at the time when what he calls globalization’s “second unbundling” was taking place. This was the breaking up of the productive process globally made possible by advances in information technology, resulting in a revolutionary innovation: the corporate global value chain. The key feature of this process has been, as we noted earlier, the dispersal of diffusion of high technology from the knowledge-rich capitalist center economies to the labor surplus peripheral countries.

While Baldwin appears to view this process as inevitable, the fact is, in the case of China, this diffusion was facilitated by policies of forced technology transfer imposed by Beijing. U.S. corporations bristled at this, but compliance was the condition of their access to super-cheap Chinese labor.

By the time Trump and Peter Navarro tried to stop sensitive high tech transfers in 2017, it was too late; China had already moved on from being a passive high-tech recipient to an active high tech innovator. Washington’s recent legislation banning the export of U.S.-made strategic microchips to China may have made a difference 10 years ago, but will have very little effect now.(중국으로 하여금 기술 자립의 시간만 더 단축하게 하는 효과를 낼 것이다..)

In May 2021, Beijing successfully landed a spacecraft on Mars, only the third country to accomplish that after the U.S. and Russia. Nor was this a fluke. Baidu launched a quantum computer that people will be able to access via a smartphone app. Construction is underway on the largest pulsed-power plant in the world, leading specialists to predict that China could achieve nuclear fusion energy by 2028. Beijing is even funding civilian hypersonic transport.

A strong state, it might be noted — one that was far stronger owing to its revolutionary origins than the classic developmental states of the Asia Pacific rim — had made the difference.

In any event, China is now the center of global capital accumulation. In the popular image, it’s the “locomotive of the world economy,” accounting for 28 percent of all growth worldwide in the five years from 2013 to 2018 according to the IMF — more than twice the share of the United States.

A Crisis of Growth vs. A Crisis of Decline

Now, it is certainly true that the Chinese economy is marked by several crises, such as the emergence of vast income inequalities, massive surplus capacity, regional disparities, real estate bubbles, and environmental problems. I look at these, however, as manifestations of the unbalanced growth that the economist Albert Hirschman saw as a necessary feature of rapid industrial development under capitalism.

These are crises of growth, in contrast to crises of decline that mark the U.S. economy.

But let us turn to the political and ideological dimensions of China’s political economy. In contrast to the simplistic view of a population cowed by repression, political protests have been common in China, both on the ground and on the internet, though some say there has been a decline in numbers in the Xi Jinping years.

But few would claim that the ruling regime is undergoing a crisis of legitimacy. Protests have been directed at local problems such land-grabbing, low wages, or environmental pollution, with no protest movement being able to translate itself into a critical mass across the country. Thus there is little challenge to the Communist Party’s political hegemony, except from democracy and human rights activists who, brave and exemplary they may be, are few and far between. Certainly, the kind of polarization one sees in the U.S. is nonexistent.(중국의 빈부격차도 미국 못지 않습니다...그런데 중국과 미국은 근본적인 차이가 잇습니다...미국은 중산층이 붕괴되어 가고 잇고 중국은 중산층을 만들어 가고 잇습니다....필자는 이런 차이를 성장의 위기 라고 하엿습니다...미국의 붕괴의 위기완 다르다는 것이지요)

Now, to the question of ideology. Ideological legitimacy rests on the party’s ability to deliver economically, provide political stability, and convince the population that it is central to achieving what Xi Jinping has called “national rejuvenation.”

Corruption, however, is a constant threat, and it cannot really be eliminated since — and here I agree with Milanovic — it is rooted in the system of discretionary decision-making or selective application of the law that, paradoxically, accompanies the technocratic thrust of what he calls “political capitalism.”

Nevertheless, corruption cannot be allowed to spread uncontrolled since this would totally subvert the technocratic rationality that is the centerpiece of the system, militate against economic growth, and erode the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party elite. Thus, as with Xi Jinping’s now 10-year-long wildly popular campaign against corruption, there must be periodic efforts to contain it, and sacrificing high officials caught with their fingers in the till is often the price paid to stabilize the system.

Corruption is a threat, but it is far from the kind of threat presented by a rival ideology, such as that posed to liberal democracy by the subversive ideology of White Supremacy that has captured the Republican Party in the United States.

중국의 부패는 위협이지만, 미국의 공화당을 지배하고 잇는  백인최고주의(White Supremacy )의 전복적인 이데올로기에 의해 자유 민주주의에 자리하고 잇는 것과 같은 경쟁적인 이데올로기가 제시하는 위협과는 거리가 멀다.

---) 중국의 부패를 아무리 아갈 거려 봐야....미국이 갖고 잇는 시스탬의 근본적인 부패 따위완 결이 다르다는 이야깁니다......

미국은 절대 중국을 이길 수 없다고 햇지요...그것은 하드 웨어가 아닌 소프트 웨어에서 너무 열악하기 때문입니다...

미국의 민주주의는 민주주의가 아니고...백인 왓다 주의 입니다...미국의 인권과 자유 ,,,그 무엇 하나 상식에 맞고 정산적인 것은 없습니다......그딴 정신질환으로 중국과는 경쟁을 할 수 가 없습니다...

미국의 허접한 민주주의나  선거, 언론, 지성 따위는  이런 미국의 문제를 절대 고칠 수 없습니다.

미국을 흉내내는 것은 손 잡고 불 구덩이에 뛰어 들어가는 것이고.

미국을 흉내내지 않는 것이 우리가 그나마 이루어 놓은 성취를 보존하고 더욱 키울 수 잇습니다.

우리가 작금에 가장 경계해야 하는 단어는 ....민주주의 입니다..

이 민주주의는 파시즘의 다른 변신일 뿐입니다..

민주주의를 아갈 거리는 작자들 중에서.....수구 꼴통의 썩은내나....처 먹은 뇌물이 뽀록나자 죶 같다며 입 앙당 처물고 되진 우리 경상도 교주님  할렐루야 곯은 냄세 나지 않는 작자들이 잇습니까??

Looking at its global political and ideological influence, China has been able to win allies especially in the global South with its economic diplomacy like the Belt and Road Initiative. But even more than the largesse of its trade and aid, what draws governments to China is the model of supple but effective technocratic leadership that appears to promise fast growth in the early stage of development and satisfy the popular desire for higher living standards, even if the cost is rising inequality and the spread of corruption.

글로발 소우트의 개발도상국가가  중국을 주목하는 이유 입니다.

필자는 중국의 통큰 지원이 아닌  중국의 발전 모델입니다..

어떻게 서구 국가들이나 미국 처럼 제국의 지배나 식민지에 대한 착취 없이도 발전이 가능한가??

여기서 그들은 중국을 보고 잇다는 것이지요. 

그들이 보고 잇는 것은 중국의 부패나 부의 불평등 보다는 그리도 빠른 기간동안 어떻게 그리도 많은  중산층을 만들어내고 생활 수준을 올리수 잇엇는가??..........그 그 내용입니다.

This appeal has risen as the perception has grown that the liberal capitalist democracy, with its uncontrolled political conflicts, market failures, and economic stagnation, no longer provides a meaningful alternative for the global South.---

그들은 이미 충분한 댓가를 치뤌습니다....

liberal capitalist democracy 는 더 이상 그들의 방식이 아니다는 것을 알앗지요.....그런 방식은 꼼짝없는 경제종속과 시장의 부패, 끊임없는 정치 불안, 사회 소요만 만들어 낸다는 것을 알앗지요.

한국, 대만, 싱가폴, 홍콩등은 다른 경우입니다..

특히 한국의 경우는 어떤 특정한 측면으로는 설명되기 어렵습니다. 

한국 처럼 하면  다 한국 처럼 경제발전과 정치 민주화를 이룰 수 잇다는 그 어떤 보장도 없습니다.

한국의 성취가 미국의 방식이다는 주장도 말짱한 개 소립니다.

자유민주주의 시장 경제???

박정희가 민주주의자엿습니까?

노무현이 사회주의자 엿습니까??..

장개석, 이광요는 늙어 되질때 까지 집권한 독제자 엿고,

홍콩이 민주주의 국가 엿습니까??

홍콩이 선거해서 대빵을 뽑은 것은 중국에 반환되고 나서이고...

영국 식민지 시절엔 선거 한번도 못 해 봣습니다..

자유민주주의 시장경제를 하면 나라가 부강해지고 잘 살게 된다???

삶은 돼야지 돼가리가 벌떡 일어나 웃을 일입니다..

각 나라는 그 나라의 전통과 환경이 잇고...그 전통과 환경에 걸 맞는 발전 체제가 잇다는 것이지요.

우리것에 맞춰 함부러 말 하지 말 것이며..

우리가 언제 부터 먹고 살만 해 졋는지나 쫌 똑바로 알고 ...우리 또한 변증에서 예외가 아니다는 것을 분명하게 알고...겸손하고 계속하여 노력 해야 합니다..

해가 지지 않는 나라 대영 제국이 지금의 우굴 거리는 홈 리스 들을 어떻게 상상 할 수 잇엇겟쓰며

우리가 대체 언제 부터 다이어트를 이야기 햇습니까??

발전이 잇썻다면 붕괴도 잇는 것이지요..

발전이 성공 햇던 것 처럼 붕괴도 쉽게 옵니다..

미국 망가지는 것 보세요..

영국이 나라입니까??????

그런 의미 에서 중국 공산당은 참 배울것이 많은 조직입니다.

고위 공무원들 이런데나 보네서 가서 쫌 배우고 오라고 햇쓰면 좋겟써...

비싼 달러 써 가며 배울것이라고는  술 처 먹고 죶구멍 빠는 것 말고는 정말 아무것도 없는 미국같은 나라에 처 가서 시간 깨 먹고 돈 깨먹고 몸 상하고 매독 걸려 돌아오지 말고..

Reluctant Beijing, Aggressive Washington

Nevertheless, although it has trumpeted China’s contributions to the developing world, Beijing has been very cautious about presenting China’s path as the one countries of the global South should follow.(이런것은 과거 냉전시대의 소련의 방식과도 다릅니다...중국은 절대 자신들의 방식을 강요하지 않습니다..) Neither has it moved to replace the multilateral agencies set up by the West to serve as the canopy of global governance, nor sought to replace the dollar with the renminbi as the world’s reserve currency.

China has, in fact, made painstaking efforts not to be seen as aspiring to step into the place of the United States, not only to avoid provoking the latter but also to avoid being burdened with the tasks that go with global leadership — and, perhaps most critical, because Beijing believes that its development path is not for export. To put it in Deng Xiaoping’s classic phrase, it is “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

While Chinese reluctance plays a big role, the biggest block to China’s displacing the U.S. and assuming the role of hegemon is Washington’s ability to call on that one resource where it still enjoys absolute superiority — military power — to redress the balance of power, to maintain its increasingly fragile hegemonic status.

We will not go into a detailed comparison between the U.S. and China on the military front. Let us just say that China is not engaged in an arms race with the U.S. and that its strategic posture is defensive. This does not mean that it does not engage in the tactical offensive in areas where it feels it faces an existential threat, like the South China Sea.

With the limited results of Trump and Navarro’s trade and technological squeeze on China, the Biden administration has moved the focus to the military front, its latest move being to bring in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) naval vessels from Europe to regularly patrol the South China Sea along with ships from Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. Critics have rightfully decried the escalation of both aggressive rhetoric and actual deployments as enhancing the possibility of armed conflict, since with no rules of engagement, a ship collision could easily escalate into a higher form of conflict.

Bluntly reminding China to moderate its ambitions or face an existential threat is, however, not the only objective of the Biden administration’s increasingly militarized China policy. Probably more important is the symbolic impact of a show of force — that is, its impact on China’s internal politics.

It is likely that this was the thrust of Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which took place a few days after a U.S. destroyer passed through the Taiwan Straits. It was the deployment of a highly symbolic event implicitly backed by military power to provoke a political crisis in the China — in this case, the destabilization of the Xi’s leading role — by showing that the U.S. could at any time tear up its One-China policy and brazenly support Taiwan without Beijing being able to do anything about it owing to its fear of U.S. power.

The timing could not have been more critical, coming two and a half months before the Party Congress in mid-October, where Xi Jinping was expected to seek consensus for his initiative to abolish the informal 10-year term limit on a president’s tenure. There are said to be reports of significant dissatisfaction with Xi’s relatively mild and largely symbolic response to the Biden-Pelosi provocation in certain quarters of the the party, the military, and the public.

Chillingly, the Pelosi visit follows one of the scenarios laid out for Washington’s response to China by the dean of U.S. security studies, Graham Allison, in his book The Thucydides Trap, which is to accompany building up its military capabilities with aggressively exploiting China’s political vulnerabilities in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet to erode the CCP’s legitimacy.

The Pros and Cons of Stalemate

But to come back to our main concern, with an economically strong China very hesitant to assert global leadership and an economically and politically weakened United States seeking desperately to shore up its position by throwing around its absolute military superiority, can we really speak about a hegemonic transition?

Should we not be talking instead about a hegemonic stalemate or a hegemonic vacuum?

Perhaps, for comparison, we should be looking not so much at a hegemonic transition but at the emergence of a hegemonic vacuum akin to but not exactly the same as that which followed the First World War in the 20th Century. Then, the weakened Western European states no longer had the capacity to restore their pre-war global hegemony — while the U.S. failed to follow through on Woodrow Wilson’s push for Washington to assert hegemonic political and ideological leadership.

Within such a vacuum or stalemate, the U.S.-China relationship would continue to be critical. Neither actor is able to decisively manage trends — such as extreme weather events, growing protectionism, the decay of the multilateral system that the United States put in place during its apogee, the resurgence of progressive movements in Latin America, the rise of authoritarian states and the likely emergence of an alliance among them to displace a faltering liberal international order, and increasingly uncontrolled tensions between radical Islamist regimes in the Middle East and Israel and conservative Arab regimes.

Both conservative and liberal policy makers paint this scenario to underline why the world needs a hegemon, with the former advocating a unilateral Goliath who does not hesitate to use threat and force to enforce order and the latter preferring a liberal Goliath who, to slightly revise Teddy Roosevelt’s famous saying, speaks sweetly but carries a big stick.

There are, however, those of us who view the current crisis of U.S. hegemony as offering not so much anarchy but opportunity.

While there are risks involved, a hegemonic stalemate or vacuum opens up the path to a world where power could be more decentralized, where there could be greater freedom of political and economic maneuvering for smaller, traditionally less privileged actors from the global South, and where a truly multilateral order could be constructed through cooperation rather than imposed through either unilateral or liberal hegemony.

Yes, crisis may lead to an even deeper crisis — but it may also lead to opportunity.