Not since the Cold War has the US had a serious rival superpower. Even in that period of intense nuclear paranoia, a sign mounted inside the Pentagon proclaimed: “If we ever faced a real enemy, we would be in deep trouble1”. With the rise of an increasingly powerful, influential and technologically advanced China, that adversary could have arrived. In his latest report, ‘US v China: the real agenda behind the trade war’, Gary Greenberg, Head of Global Emerging Markets at Hermes Investment Management, explains why China’s emergence on the global stage poses a genuine threat to US dominance.
Gary Greenberg said: “Predictions that China would shed the skin of totalitarian single-party rule and emerge as a multiparty, liberal market economy have proved to be well off the mark. This outcome, coinciding with the US’s retreat from global leadership under President Donald Trump, has created a geopolitical vacuum that the Chinese authorities are eager to exploit.”