The US-China competition remains the 'defining issue' of international politics. My last piece titled the "Sino-US rivalry" was published in this space on January 11, 2024, where some relevant writings of the CNN-famed Fareed Zakaria and others were discussed. Given the comparative National Power Potential (NPP), the world seems to be drifting from unipolarity, ushered in after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990s; to the 'present state' of bipolarity (the US and China); and to the likely future scenario of multipolarity (China, Russia, EU, India and Brazil).

First, a bipolar comparison. Conventional view is that China is 'already a US peer or near-peer, economically'. However, as I had pointed out, in the present state of competition, China still needs to do a lot of catching up, as the American NPP — especially its military strength, power of alliances and its cosmopolitan, multicultural and educated demography — far outpaces China, the 'hesitant regional power' that is trying to become a more assertive superpower. The US GDP is almost twice as large as China's and some analysts believe that the Chinese official figures are fudged, with Beijing manipulating key economic metrics, including GDP.

China is heavily dependent upon fuel imports; has almost 20% housing vacancy rates and over $1 trillion in debt from its 48,000 km high-speed rail networks. The US by comparison leads in key high-technology sectors like the IT/software and services sector (80% of global profit shares); aerospace and defence (66.35%); drugs and biotechnology (60%) and semi-conductors/chips (58%, compared to China's miniscule 2.6% share).

Then there are studies........

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