For a long time, I thought that China would never succeed in becoming the world’s dominant superpower. There were plenty of reasons to believe this: its demographic evolution, which condemns it to grow old before it grows rich; its real estate sector in recurrent crisis, with dozens of “ghost towns”; the pollution ravaging hundreds of industrial areas; its coal consumption, which is far higher than that of the rest of the world combined; its bureaucratic dictatorship, which stifles initiative and spreads fear; its non-convertible currency; and finally, its history and culture, which have never been focused on conquering neighboring territories or on ideological or cultural domination of the world, as all other empires have been in the past.
And yet, thanks to the United States, China can become the world’s leading power: By choosing not to help his allies, to reduce research spending, and to destroy all forms of soft power, Donald Trump is destroying the foundations of the American empire, which had already been greatly weakened by his predecessors. He is now acting not only as if he were Russia’s best friend, but also China’s. And the worst enemy of Europeans.
It all happened very quickly: in 1995, China’s GDP was one-tenth that of the United States; in 2024, it was 15% higher in purchasing power parity and today accounts for 18% of global GDP. Over the same period, China’s share of global industrial production rose from 5% to 30%. While China had no high-speed trains in 2003, it has had the world’s largest network since 2011 and will have more than 40,000 kilometers of track by 2025. It produced more steel in two years (2023 and 2024) than Britain has since 1800, and has poured more concrete in the last two years than the US has since its independence. In addition, it accounts for half of the world’s copper and controls two-thirds of the world’s lithium and cobalt and nearly 70% of rare earths. It produces around 80% of the world’s batteries. Seven of the world’s ten largest ports are in China; none are in the United States, which no longer has a shipyard or a global shipowner.
China has organized unlimited digital surveillance that allows the party to identify troublemakers before they even make themselves known. Its social networks are extremely effective; its currency is entirely electronic; bosses and administrators are starting to have virtual doubles who respond on their behalf, having recorded all possible answers in advance; the country has a large number of engineers in many cutting-edge fields and in conventional industry, which is not the case in the United States or nor in Europe. It has developed a very particular work ethic and culture of innovation, while continuing to shamelessly exploit populations subjected to quasi-slavery. Today, it has a high-performance industry, producing everything from clothing and toys to aircraft carriers, drones, computers, telephones, and nuclear power plants. Its use of AI is more than ten years ahead of the rest of the world. Its self-driving cars operate in many cities. It can flood all the world’s markets, at least those that remain open, with electric cars, computers, and household appliances without anyone being able to compete with it. It could even decide, through a kind of reverse protectionism, to refuse to sell rare earths, computers, or cell phones to anyone seeking to harm it.
This power is no longer local. China now has a strong global presence to secure its supply of metals, oil, gas, coal, agricultural products, wood, and tobacco from Africa and Brazil. Chinese companies are building and financing thousands of airports, hospitals, ports, stadiums, and government buildings. They have built more than 300 dams, thousands of kilometers of roads and railways, and pipelines in many African countries. They have stripped Africans of their minerals and forests, indebting these countries and providing their governments with sophisticated tools of repression.
Almost nothing seems to be able to prevent China from becoming the new imperial superpower. Especially if America withdraws from all these territories and abandons fundamental research. China could then very soon demand political payment: by occupying Taiwan, without the US lifting a finger; and by forcing Japan to finally apologize and compensate it for its barbaric conduct in the 1930s, something Tokyo has so far always refused to do.
The world today is therefore largely in the hands of three predators, exploiting their own populations and all those who allow themselves to be subjugated: Russia, China, and the United States.
Much can still change: China could sink into a financial, political, military or ecological crisis. The United States could come to its senses and realize that nothing is more valuable to it than developing its healthcare and education systems and strengthening its allies.
Europe cannot simply hope for such a scenario. It must accept reality as it is and understand that it has a unique opportunity to bring together, in a geostrategic alliance, all those who do not want to be under the thumb of any of the three great tyrants. To do this, it must first protect itself: by arming itself against Russia; by protecting itself, through tariffs and quotas, against the invasion of Chinese products that will have been shut out of US markets; by developing the means to resist probable future US blackmail (on electronic currency, Treasury bonds, military protection, the use of their digital tools and software); and by attracting investment and talent fleeing these three hells. This is a huge undertaking. And one of immense urgency.