China's mythification of being a "Superpower" was authored in the United States some two decades ago arising from strategic considerations of its then "China Policy'. In 2024, unfolding geopolitical and geoeconomic developments have perceptionally robbed China of that much aspired 'honorific'.
Contextual observations on the myth of 'China as a Superpower' were made as far back as 2015 in my Book: "China-India Military Confrontation; 21st Century Perspectives".
Some pertinent observations made then and germane to the discussion in this Paper are reproduced and discussed below.
"Of course, there is no global mechanism that can afford the deferential status of Superpower but for the writings and utterances of officialdom in the United States. This should cease because China in the classical interpretation of the term 'Superpower' has none of the attributes that are attendant on it."
China in 2024, may have an outsized military machine and nuclear weapons armory, but it lacks two important ingredients of a Superpower, and that are global force-projection & military reach and geopolitical weightage to shape the global and regional environment, positively.
Addedly, follow-up pertinent excerpts from my Book adding context to the discussion are reproduced below.
"Geopolitical seismic changes as the one China seems to be generating in the 21st Century have created in its wake new strategic 'fault-lines', new political alignments and re-alignments and which are visible in 2015."
"Going by historical lessons, also attendant in such strategic challenges by a 'revisionist power' rise two other realities of the coalescing of lesser powers around the power that is being challenged, as opposed to the 'revisionist power' and also the propensity of the 'revisionist power' boxing much above its true strategic weight. This factor leads to unintended strategic consequences."
China, unlike Former Soviet Union as the then contending Superpower of the United States has been unable to forge the equivalent of a Warsaw Pact Bloc of Communist countries alliance straddling Central Europe, which endowed Soviet Union geopolitical and geostrategic weight to earn the sobriquet of a Superpower.
China in 2024, with the exception of North Korea and Pakistan, has no line-up of 'Natural Allies' like US-led NATO or the interwoven US-led bilateral and multilateral security groupings in the Indo Pacific.
China does not 'straddle' IndoPacific. It not only has to contend with the United States but also to contend with two 'Major Contending Asian Powers', namely India and Japan. Both India and Japan have contentious boundary disputes with China.
The current crystalizing Russia-China Axis post-Ukraine has limitations when competing Russian and Chinese narratives surface in Central Asia and even in Iran.
China's political and military influence is felt and more acutely confined to its peripheries in Indo Pacific with remote sensing in Europe.
In terms of military and combat effectiveness, Russia draws a legacy inheritance from some of the bitterest fighting of World War II against blitzkrieg German military operations deep on Russian soil and the Soviet Army's later advances to Berlin.
Chinese Armed Forces have no comparable war and battle-hardened experiences except for the Korean War of early 1950s where Chinese 'Mass-Force' operations having over-run South Korea up to its Southern tip of Pusan were 'rolled-back' across the Yalu River in North Korea by US General MacArthur's application of modernized military machine.
Chinese military power stood checkmated notably as far back as 1979 by Vietnam and effectively since 2020 by India along its Himalayan Borders with China Occupied Tibet.
Admittedly, China has at its command in 2024 massive conventional and nuclear weapons military machine. But China's much' mythicized ' Superpower military machine has not been battle-tested in prolonged modernized military operations like the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War.
Doubts on the Chinese military machine military effectiveness, the mainstay of China's mush aspired Superpower status, also arise from the deleterious effects of wholesale purges in its military hierarchy by incumbent President Xi Jinping. That it does have an impact is not debatable.
Geopolitically, in 2024, China has by its self-inflicted aggressive impulses on its peripheries pushed itself into a corner. Indo Pacific as a virtual whole is deeply polarized against China. The resonance of this geopolitical cornering of China now extends all the way to Europe and NATO.
Geoeconomically, the very economic resurgence of China into double-digit growth and which financed its Hitlerian outsized military arsenal has now whittled down to single digits of 4-5% growth rates. Can China sustain this military machine and for how long?
China's economic superpower predominance in manufacturing and semi-conductors which prevailed for decades in American strategic calculations is now 'moth-eaten' by flight of foreign capital and increasing trade-barriers against China's lop-sided export trade surpluses.
The disintegration of the Former Soviet Union as United States 'Contending' Superpower' was brought about by US Reaganisque dual policies of inflicting an arms race on the Soviet Union with a consequent stagnant economic decline.
China may have learnt all the lessons from the disintegration of the Former Soviet Union but as the policies underway in 2024 of China's President Xi Jinping indicate that the lessons learnt are now being "unlearnt"
Concluding, it is incumbent upon the United States which beatified China with the mythicized hallowed term of being a 'Superpower', to now revise such an assessment.
China at best, in my assessment. is just another Major Power with an outsized military arsenal which has generated an arms race not only with the United States but also in Indo Pacific. The disintegration of Former Soviet Union due to arms race impact, is a grim pointer.
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