The Chinese Century is a neologism suggesting that the 21st century may be geoeconomically and/or geopolitically dominated by the People's Republic of China, similar to how the "American Century" refers to the 20th century and the "British Century" to the 19th. Related terms are "China's rise" or "China's peaceful rise." Inside China, the slogan "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," coined by Jiang Zemin, is more often used.
China created the Belt and Road Initiative, which, according to analysts, has been a geostrategic effort to take a larger role in global affairs and challenge American postwar hegemony. It has also been argued that China co-founded the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank to compete with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in development finance. In 2015, China launched the Made in China 2025 strategic plan to further develop its manufacturing sector.
China's large working population has contributed to its rise as a global power. However, the population in China is aging faster than almost any other country in history. Current demographic trends could hinder economic growth, create challenging social problems, and limit China's capabilities to act as a new global hegemon.
According to The Economist, on a purchasing-power-parity (PPP) basis, the Chinese economy became the world's largest in 2013. On a foreign exchange rate basis, some estimates in 2020 and early 2021 have determined that China could overtake the U.S. in 2028, or 2026 if the Chinese currency further strengthened. As of July 2021, Bloomberg L.P. analysts estimated that China may either overtake the U.S. to become the world's biggest economy in the 2030s or never be able to reach such a goal. Some scholars believe that China's rise has peaked and that an impending stagnation or decline may follow.
Debates and factors
China's economy was estimated to be the largest in the 16th, 17th and early 18th century. Joseph Stiglitz said the "Chinese Century" had begun in 2014. The Economist has argued that "the Chinese Century is well under way", citing China's GDP since 2013, if calculated on a purchasing-power-parity basis.
From 2013, China created the Belt and Road Initiative, with future investments of almost $1 trillion which according to analysts has been a geostrategic push for taking a larger role in global affairs. It has also been argued that China co-founded the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank to compete with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in development finance. In 2015, China launched the Made in China 2025 strategic plan to further develop the manufacturing sector, with the aim of upgrading the manufacturing capabilities of Chinese industries and growing from labor-intensive workshops into a more technology-intensive powerhouse.
In November 2020, China signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership as a free trade agreement in counter to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The deal has been considered by some commentators as a "huge victory" for China, although it has been shown that it would add just 0.08% to China's 2030 GDP without India's participation.
Ryan Hass, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, said in 2021 that much of the narrative of China "inexorably rising and on the verge of overtaking a faltering United States" was promoted by China's state-affiliated media outlets, adding, "Authoritarian systems excel at showcasing their strengths and concealing their weaknesses." Political scientist Matthew Kroenig said in 2020, "the plans often cited as evidence of China's farsighted vision, the Belt and Road Initiative and Made in China 2025, were announced by Xi only in 2013 and 2015, respectively. Both are way too recent to be celebrated as brilliant examples of successful, long-term strategic planning."
Depending on different assumptions of scenarios, it has been estimated that China would either overtake the U.S. to become the world's biggest economy in the 2030s or never be able to do so.
International relations In 2011, Michael Beckley, then a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, released his journal China's Century? Why America's Edge Will Endure which rejects that the U.S. is in decline relative to China or that the hegemonic burdens the U.S. bears to sustain a globalized system contributes to its decline. Beckley argues the U.S. power is durable, and "unipolarity" and globalization are the main reasons. He says, "The United States derives competitive advantages from its preponderant position, and globalization allows it to exploit these advantages, attracting economic activity and manipulating the international system to its benefit."
Beckley believes that if the United States was in terminal decline, it would adopt neomercantilist economic policies and disengage from military commitments in Asia. "If however, the United States is not in decline, and if globalization and hegemony are the main reasons why, then the United States should do the opposite: it should contain China’s growth by maintaining a liberal international economic policy, and it should subdue China’s ambitions by sustaining a robust political and military presence in Asia." Beckley believes that the United States benefits from being an extant hegemon—the U.S. did not overturn the international order to its benefit in 1990, but rather, the existing order collapsed around it.
Scholars that are skeptical of the U.S.'s ability to maintain a leading position include Robert Pape, who has calculated that "one of the largest relative declines in modern history" stems from "the spread of technology to the rest of the world". Similarly, Fareed Zakaria writes, "The unipolar order of the last two decades is waning not because of Iraq but because of the broader diffusion of power across the world." Paul Kipchumba in Africa in China's 21st Century: In Search of a Strategy predicts a deadly cold war between the U.S. and China in the 21st century, and, if that cold war does not occur, he predicts China will supplant the U.S. in all aspects of global hegemony.Kipchumba, Paul, Africa in China's 21st Century: In Search of a Strategy, Nairobi: Kipchumba Foundation, 2017,
Academic Rosemary Foot writes that the rise of China has led to some renegotiations of the U.S. hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, but inconsistency between China's stated ambitions and policy actions has prompted various forms of resistance which leaves U.S. hegemony only partially challenged. Meanwhile, C. Raja Mohan observes that "many of China’s neighbors are steadily drifting toward either neutrality between Beijing and Washington or simply acceptance of being dominated by their giant neighbor." However, he also notes that Australia, India, and Japan have readily challenged Beijing. Richard Heyderian proposes that "America’s edge over China is its broad and surprisingly durable network of regional alliances, particularly with middle powers Japan, Australia and, increasingly, India, which share common, though not identical, concerns over China’s rising assertiveness."
In the midst of global concerns that China's economic influence included political leverage, Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated "No matter how far China develops, it will never seek hegemony". At several international summits, one being the World Economic Forum in January 2021, Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated a preference for multilateralism and international cooperation. However, political scientist Stephen Walt contrasts the public message with China's intimidation of neighboring countries. Stephen Walt suggests that the U.S. "should take Xi up on his stated preference for multilateral engagement and use America’s vastly larger array of allies and partners to pursue favorable outcomes within various multilateral forums." Though encouraging the possibility of mutually beneficial cooperation, he argues that "competition between the two largest powers is to a considerable extent hardwired into the emerging structure of the international system." According to former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, China will "[initially] want to share this century as co-equals with the U.S.", but have "the intention to be the greatest power in the world" eventually.
Writing in the Asia Europe Journal, Lei Yu and Sophia Sui suggest that the China-Russia strategic partnership "shows China’s strategic intention of enhancing its 'hard' power in order to elevate its status at the systemic (global) level."
In 2018, Xiangming Chen wrote that China was potentially creating a New Great Game, shifted to geoeconomic competition compared with the original Great Game. Chen stated that China would play the role of the British Empire (and Russia the role of the 19th century Russian Empire) in the analogy as the "dominant power players vs. the weaker independent Central Asian states". Additionally, he suggested that ultimately the Belt and Road Initiative could turn the "China-Central Asia nexus into a vassal relationship characterized by cross-border investment by China for border security and political stability."
Science and technology
According to the World Intellectual Property Indicators, China received more applications than the U.S. did in 2018 and 2019 and ranked first globally in patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs, and creative goods exports in 2021. In 2022, China overtook the US in the Nature Index, which measures the share of published articles in leading scientific journals. In recent years, China made rapid advances in key technological areas, becoming a world leader in tech such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar panels. Desipte being a middle-income country in the 2020s, China became a high-tech manufacturing superpower through decades long investments, industrial policies, and powerful government institutions.
Energy security
Since 2013, China has been the world's largest importer of crude oil, and in 2022 it became the world's largest refiner, turning imported crude into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel for domestic use and export to other Asian countries. As China imported large amounts of energy resources (crude oil, natural gas, coal, etc.) from other countries, including Gulf states, Russia, Iran and the United States, this dependency on foreign energy sources was seen as a major vulnerability and weakness of the Chinese economy and national power. These exporting petrostates could significantly influence the price on global markets or by withholding supplies. To gain energy security and energy independence, China invested heavily in renewable energy and became one of the leading countries of energy transition and the development of renewable energy technologies (solar panels, wind turbines, and lithium-ion batteries), supply chains, manufacturing capability, and rare earth supplies. Countries with abundant renewable resources and the minerals required for renewable technology were expected to gain geopolitical influence.
China is called a 'clean energy superpower' due to the country's long-term strategy and investment in renewable energy. China curbs its reliance on foreign energy by expanding domestic solar, wind, and nuclear energy supply, making the country's economy more resilient against oil supply outages and price hikes. In 2025, the country accounts for 80% of solar panel manufacturing capacity and 60% of wind turbine production in the world, and dominated relevant industries such as the new energy automobiles. The decades-long investment also ensured China's leadership position in climate politics, especially after the United States forfeited its climate leadership position after the country left the Paris agreement.