America: The Real Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

American Greatness ^ | 19 May, 2026 | Victor Davis Hanson

[MtnClimber]

America has repeatedly been declared a dying empire, yet every rival—from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union to China—has ultimately fallen short of US power and resilience.

One American view of China—now increasingly popular on the Left and the Right alike, especially among the hate-Trump crowd—is that the communist colossus will be forever ascendant, with continued astonishing levels of food production, ship construction, and industrial output. In this pessimistic view, China will soon replace America as the world’s predominant power. We are, supposedly, like an exhausted British Empire circa 1945, and China is the new version of the postwar American powerhouse.

Yet even Beijing’s miraculous 30-year leap out of poverty into first-world affluence and Westernized power is hardly the same as parity with the US. In truth, Trump held almost all the cards at the current summit and will do so again when Xi Jinping visits the US this autumn. According to nearly every historical measure of power, the US leads China by sizable margins—in wealth, economic output, fuel, food, and military strength.

China has roughly four times the population of the US, but produces only about 60 percent of our total GDP. A crude way of looking at this asymmetry is that one US citizen accounts for 40 percent more goods and services than his four Chinese counterparts. Americans enjoy a per capita GDP (roughly $95,000) over six times higher than China’s (roughly $15,000).

We are the largest oil and gas producer and exporter in history; China must import 11 to 12 million barrels of oil every day. The US is also the greatest food exporter in history; China, for all its miraculous increases in agricultural productivity, still must import 30–40 percent of its food, a number that keeps rising as China becomes more affluent

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TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans; Society
KEYWORDS: ccp; china; vdh; victordavishanson

[MtnClimber]

VDH ping

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[Maine Mariner]

I remember the same comments about the rise of Japan and the decline of the USA in the mid 1980’s. To hear the chatting classes talk we would all be speaking Japanese by the year 2000. Once the again the experts were proven wrong.

[Jonty30]

The Chinese will look at you with a straight face and say “we think in centuries” as they plunge into a demographic crisis caused by one-child policy started 40 years ago.

[ClearCase_guy]

Trump is engaged in a grand global strategy which will remove China as a super power or near peer. Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, tariffs, re-shoring industry — everything Trump is doing will hurt China. Combine that with China’s demographic trouble (lots of old people and much fewer young people), and the growing social unrest in China, and we may be looking at a future in which China is no longer much of a nation.

And then who can challenge us? Europe? Russia? I think it will be like 1946 all over again. Decades of American dominance and prosperity.

[marktwain]

Good point.

The founding fathers did a far better job than the Chinese emperors and mandarins.

[Jonty30]

It can only be divine providence that explains the Founding Fathers. I think, considering how everything is just coming together just right for Trump, he may be the product of divine providence as well.

[FLT-bird]

If you look at GDP at Purchasing Power Parity, China's economy is closer to the size of the US economy if not slightly larger. By the same measure, the US doesn't really spend 6 times as much on Defense. Those are just nominal terms. Everything is cheaper in China and that includes soldier's pay and military equipment. So the US is not really as dominant as VDH is saying here. That being said, his point about the demographics is true. China is aging very rapidly and that will spell the end of rapid economic growth for them. There will be fewer workers and more old people who will have to be taken care of. It is also true that Trump has been taking out their proxies and it is furthermore true that their air defense systems failed miserably in both Venezuela and Iran when they came up against US air power. It is also true that America is the world's largest agricultural and energy exporter and America still has the most advanced technology of any country in the world. Furthermore, yes, China really does have a ring of smaller powers around it which view it as a threat and which are therefore happy to align with America to contain it.

[Sicon]

As far as leverage goes, tomorrow the US could deny visas and green cards to hundreds of thousands of Chinese students and technicians, effectively aborting China’s fifty-year effort to absorb and replicate US technology.

So why don't we?

[Sicon]

[yldstrk]

Don’t forget China’s complete lack of character or ethical framework that dooms all of its enterprises to the dustbin of history.

[Brian Griffin]

“Nine in 10 families in China own a home.”

https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/17/china/china-homeownership-rate-tested-intl-hnk

[Carry_Okie]

Oh please, with our ignorant and wussified young men? Unless we fix our schools China will eventually eat our lunch, despite their catastrophically stupid management overhead.

[Clutch Martin]

“That being said, his point about the demographics is true. China is aging very rapidly and that will spell the end of rapid economic growth for them. There will be fewer workers and more old people who will have to be taken care of.”

If I was old and living in china , I would worry about HOW the old people would be taken care of.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

When GDP includes government spending, it’s hard to use it as a reliable benchmark.

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting. VDH BUMP!

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "If you look at GDP at Purchasing Power Parity, China's economy is closer to the size of the US economy if not slightly larger.
By the same measure, the US doesn't really spend 6 times as much on Defense.
Those are just nominal terms.
Everything is cheaper in China and that includes soldier's pay and military equipment.
So the US is not really as dominant as VDH is saying here. "

Your post is exactly right, on both sides of the ledger -- China is both stronger in some ways and weaker in other ways than usually acknowledged:

1. China is stronger because:

   

   • China's Nominal GDP numbers understate Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) by over 50%.

   • US GDP (~$32T) is 55% greater than China's nominal GDP ($21T), but 27% less than China's GDP at PPP ($44T).

   • In manufacturing, China produces 28% of global value added, the US only 17%.
     2002 was the last time the US produced over 28% of global manufacturing value added.

   • China' military spending is officially reported as circa $280 billion however, when converted to PPP and increased by estimates of hidden military related spending, the more realistic number is nearly $800 billion.
     Added together with Russian military (also at PPP w/hidden) of c. $500 billion, combined they roughly match US defense spending.

2. China is weaker because:

   

   • Unlike the US, China is not self-sufficient in either energy or agriculture.
     They are vulnerable to disruptions in international supply chains.

   • China's massive manufacturing economy is built to export, and so will struggle to avoid collapsing if/when the global world order does not support its exports.

   • China's military looks impressive on paper but is untested in actual combat.

   • The US and Indo-Pacific allies/partners/friends combined massively outnumber CCP China in every category.

   • The CCP government is determined to prevent a repeat of the Old Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, and so far is successful.
     How long will that last?

   • Nobody today knows how the global demographic crisis will play out long term, and worst-case scenarios look bleak.
     On the other hand, it may be something cyclical which will reverse itself under the right conditions.
     Today, China looks weak demographically, but with 1.4 billion people (or whatever the real number is), they could decline by a large percentage and still be very overpopulated.

Bottom line: I would neither overestimate nor underestimate China, but seek a realistic evaluation that can allow China's manifest weaknesses to be used in curbing its worst behaviors.

[piasa]

Was just looking through the sale flyer for my local grocer.

One ear of sweet corn is a full dollar.

That is insane.

[oldtech]

I would have to say that China has too many hidden flaws to be what is suggested here.