Will China Overwhelm The USA in The Near Future?

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Those who think that China will surpass the USA anytime soon must read the following points to overcome their doubts. 

1. China is a country of both strengths and weaknesses while the USA has several advantages. China's geographic location is troublesome. It's surrounded by 14 countries, of which three countries (India, Japan and Vietnam) are not very friendly to her. To add, it has many territorial disputes with its neighbors. On the other hand, the location of the USA is a great benefit to it. It has a clear advantage of isolation and security provided by surrounding oceans and friendly allies respectively.

2. China is an energy importer. It depends on Persian Gulf for its needs, and it's very import cargoes pass through the Indian Ocean where the USA and its allies already have supremacy. The USA, in contrast, has become the largest exporter of oil in the world, thanks to the shale revolution.

3. China has a marked demographic disadvantage. It's working age population has already peaked in 2015. It will further loose 9% of its young working class in the next 15 years, whereas the USA is supposed to gain the 5% of it. The later also reaps the benefits of it's open immigration policies and attractive standard of life and job market. People will hardly prefer China over the USA for immigration and education.

4. The universities in the USA and the West have far greater appeal than the universities in China. As per the recent index published by Shanghai Jiaotong University of China, all the top 20 global universities were Western; none Chinese.

5. As far as the technology is concerned, China has started acing in some of the key technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence and 5G. But the USA still dominates in some other major technologies (bio, nano, information), and its research expenditures exceeds that of China's. 

6. Furthermore, the USA dollar holds sway in almost two-third of financial transactions in the world, followed by the Euro - another Western currency. Other countries also put more trust in American dollar than Chinese Yuan - the latter being only used in 2% of the world's monetary transactions.

To conclude, Uncle Sam is here to stay for many decades to come, and China will, no doubt, remain the 2nd most powerful country, continuing its efforts of supplanting the USA one day.

P.S. I have still left many other important points to be covered later in the next write-up.

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