Denying “America’s Decline”
263Geopolitics
Nye point out that, geopolitically, among the countries and areas that
border China’s land, only North Korea, Myanmar and Pakistan keep a
good relationship with China, while other neighbours nurse a grievance to
some extent. China’s rise will be contained by India, Japan, and other
countries, and they welcome a US presence in Asia. The improvement of
the US-Japan alliance and US-India relations shows that it will be hard for
China to drive out the US from East Asia. America has a strong ability to
obtain trust and form alliances, which is beyond China’s reach. Although
the Obama Administration made a military and diplomatic pivot toward
Asia, this doesn’t mean it opens a large rift with Europe; although Europe
is busy with the current Euro area crisis, the EU-US alliance is still
unbreakable.
The immigration issue
On this issue, Nye said, even though a fast growth rate of immigrants may
cause social problems, and the immigration issue keeps popping up in
American history, in the long run, America’s gains are huge, and it will
also strengthen their soft power. Now America has the third largest
population in the world, which will last through the next fifty years. He
quoted the former prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew’s words,
arguing that China can look for talent from 1.3 billion people, whereas the
US can attract the best from 6 billion people, they can integrate into
multiculturalism, and this creativity will overshadow the innovation of
Chinese culture.
Conclusion
Nye’s conclusion is that American hegemony has not declined, and the
time for China hasn’t come yet.
There are two definitions for the word “decline”: one is absolute,
another is comparative. It’s no doubt that the US is going through a
difficult time after financial crisis. Moreover, it has serious problems in the
areas of debt, lower education levels, and political deadlock, but this is
only one side, which will be solved in the future. The predictions of
American decline will be proved misleading.^15
Also, he has made clear that America is still the world's most powerful
(^15) http://news.ifeng.com/mil/4/detail_2011_10/11/9752292_0.shtml