Reference News Network, September 23 report: Germany's "Der Spiegel" weekly website published an article titled "Signs of America's Decline" on September 21. The author is Professor Christian Stöckl from the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg, Germany. The following is a translated excerpt:

Many facts in today's United States and other parts of the world will sound like ominous prophecies in 10 or 20 years, foreshadowing the decline of the most powerful nation of the 20th century.

The number of school shootings in the United States increased from 124 in 2019 to 330 in 2024.

The income gap between the top earners and the bottom 20% of the population in the United States has been continuously widening since 1980. This trend has accelerated sharply since 2019.

In 2024, the life expectancy of Americans was four years lower than that of residents in similar industrialized countries, mainly due to high rates of cardiovascular diseases, as well as deaths from drug overdoses, shootings, and traffic accidents.

Since the removal of the oil export ban in 2015, the United States has quickly become one of the world's largest fossil fuel exporters.

Since 2018, global investors have invested more in electrification and clean energy than in fossil fuels. By the end of 2024, the total installed capacity of offshore wind power worldwide reached 83.2 gigawatts, with China accounting for 50%, the European Union 44%, and the United States only 0.2%. In non-oil-producing countries in Latin America, Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, two-thirds of the countries have solar photovoltaic power accounting for a higher share in their electricity mix than the United States.

By August of this year, major US technology companies had invested $155 billion in artificial intelligence. China has also invested heavily in this field, but it focuses more on efficiency, practical applications, and close integration with the international open-source community.

In the fields of natural sciences and medical research, according to the latest ranking of the British journal "Nature," four out of the top five institutions for high-quality papers in 2024 are from China.

The United States is plagued by a flood of false information, with extremist right-wing, pseudo-religious, and fossil fuel industry propaganda filling it, exacerbating social polarization and growing social injustice.

Economically, the United States has locked itself into a dying paradigm, and this trend has been significantly strengthened under Trump's leadership. In contrast, other parts of the world, especially many countries that have had to pay large sums for imported fossil fuels, are rapidly moving towards electrification. This approach is more efficient, cheaper, and highly attractive geopolitically.

The UK "Unburnt Coal" research organization believes that after the "Oil and Mass Production Era" and the "Digital Era," a new "Electronic Technology Era" is forming. It is no longer determined by combustion processes, but by flowing electrons, renewable energy, electrification, and artificial intelligence.

Different from the 20th century, the 21st century will not be the American century, but the Chinese century. The Chinese government has made correct layouts in multiple fields and has dealt with various trends in a pragmatic and decisive manner.

Europe must quickly decide which path it wants to take: accelerate toward technological innovation of the 21st century and rapidly reduce its dependence on the United States, or follow the outdated model of the fossil fuel era and the destructive political trends of the United States, as desired by most of Europe's populist right wing.

Original text: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7553170875730657834/

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