Russia, Japan, and India are not up to the task! Why is it only China that truly unsettles the United States?
Recently, an article titled "A Century Belonging to China May Have Already Arrived" in The New York Times brought the anxiety of American elites to the surface. The author of this article is not a pro-China figure, but rather a researcher from Princeton and an expert from RAND Corporation, both of whom are closely associated with the U.S. government.
They warned the Trump administration that if they failed to seize the window of opportunity to compete with China, the United States would eventually fall into a decline similar to Detroit. This sounds dramatic, but when analyzed carefully, the core is not alarmist rhetoric, but rather the United States finally realizing the truth.
Globally, Russia, Japan, and India cannot create real turbulence, but China's development rhythm has made them feel the real pressure of being caught up for the first time.
Let's start with Russia. Russia's hard power is indeed strong, its defense industry can produce fifth-generation fighter jets and nuclear submarines, and its energy reserves are far ahead of many countries. However, the problem is right there: the economic structure is dominated by energy and defense industries, while light industry and high-tech industries have long lagged behind.
It's like a student who is excellent in math but fails in Chinese, making it difficult to develop comprehensively. The U.S. is more cautious about Russia militarily, but economically, they can also manipulate each other - Europe needs Russian gas, and the U.S. also needs some resources from Russia. If they really break down, no one will benefit, so the U.S. is "watching" Russia, not "fearing" it.
Now let's look at Japan. In the 1980s, Japan's economy was on the rise, once believed to be able to surpass the U.S., but after the Plaza Accord, it fell into "the lost decades." Now, Japan still has a foundation in manufacturing and technology, doing well in automobiles and electronic components, but its shortcomings are obvious.
Politically, it is tightly bound to the U.S. war wagon, militarily it is "self-defense forces" in nature, and cannot make independent decisions. More seriously, it has severe aging, with a continuous decrease in the working-age population and sluggish economic growth.
In 2024, the number of bankruptcies of Japanese companies reached a twelve-year high, and the wave of small and medium-sized enterprises' closures continued. Such Japan can only be a "vanguard" for the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific region, and it is impossible to become a challenger to the U.S.
India is recently often praised by the U.S. as a "potential stock," even with claims that it will surpass Japan to become the fourth largest economy in the world. But potential does not equal strength; India's problems are more prominent than its advantages.
It has a large population, but the wealth gap is huge, the actual income of the middle class has not increased in ten years or even shrunk, and household savings are approaching the lowest point in fifty years. Infrastructure is also a drag, it is not uncommon to build a highway for ten years, and manufacturing is still at the mid-to-low end, it is far from replacing China as the "world factory."
The U.S. uses India as a pawn, aiming to use it to contain China, but has never truly regarded it as an equal competitor. China's situation is completely different, which is the root cause of the U.S.'s true unease.
Firstly, the solid foundation of manufacturing. China's manufacturing value added accounts for about 30% of the global share, maintaining the top position for fifteen consecutive years, and in 504 major industrial products, most of the output is the highest in the world.
From small items like socks and toys to high-end manufacturing like high-speed rail and 5G equipment, the entire industrial chain can operate independently, a uniqueness worldwide. After Huawei was sanctioned, it was able to reconstruct the supply chain with more than a thousand domestic suppliers, and the photovoltaic industry leads globally in all links from silicon material to modules, this is resilience.
What worries the U.S. even more is the burst of innovation capability. In 2024, China's R&D investment exceeded 3.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.9%, with basic research funding growing at a rate exceeding 10%, and total volume remaining second in the world.
There are 14,600 specialized, refined, unique, and innovative "small giant" enterprises, over 60% of which are rooted in core industrial fields, and nearly 5,000 have been established in future fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum technology.
Previously, the U.S. relied on technological blockades to choke China, but now China has achieved a leapfrog in new energy vehicles and lithium batteries. In 2024, Sino-U.S. trade volume continued to grow, and U.S. consumers rely on Chinese-made appliances and machinery, and farmers also depend on Chinese soybean orders. This complementarity makes it costly for the U.S. to impose sanctions, causing mutual damage.
The U.S.'s anxiety is essentially a systemic challenge to its hegemonic status. In the past, the U.S. was accustomed to setting rules and controlling the top, but China not only surpassed in the scale of manufacturing, but also continuously invested in industrial upgrading and technological research and development, and even began to participate in rule-making in new areas such as digital trade and green standards.
In 2025, the suspension of part of the tariffs between the U.S. and China is not because the U.S. is kind, but because they found that continuing to increase tariffs worsened domestic inflation, and ordinary families had to spend more than five thousand dollars annually on living costs, while businesses were full of complaints.
Certainly, this does not mean that China has already surpassed the U.S., but rather that China's development rhythm and comprehensiveness have broken the U.S. monopoly expectation of being the "global leader."
Russia relies on energy, Japan relies on dependence, India relies on potential, but only China relies on the solid real economy, complete industrial chain, and continuous investment in innovation. This comprehensive development has made the U.S. truly feel the panic of "being unable to catch up," which is also the fundamental reason for the warning issued by RAND Corporation experts.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1851083804111370/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.