When one observes a map, it often tells a story.
If an individual viewed a map during the Second World War, the Atlantic was the centerpiece, with Europe and the United States on either side. Following Great Britain’s decline and America’s rise, the United States stood front and center, with the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean on either side.
However, as the world enters a new epoch of multipolarity, the map presents a different focus. China is at the center of the map, with the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean on either side. This is the cartographic expression of the Indo-Pacific century, where the center of economic and demographic gravity rests within the Valerie Pieris Circle, and it tells the story of our times.
If one zooms in on the center of the Asian Continent, the viewer will note that all of Asia’s Seven Major Rivers flow from Asia’s Water Tower or the ‘Third Pole,’ which rests firmly in the Himalayan region of Tibet. As China controls the fresh water necessary for billions of people in Southeast Asia and India to survive, China holds the keys to Asia.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ultimate vision in creating the Americanist System was to end European Colonialism and permit the self-determination of peoples and nations under the United Nations Charter for Universal Human Rights.
This charter envisioned a stable Americanist International System supported by financial, trade, and security organizations. It was crafted to rebuild war-torn Europe and aid in decolonizing developing nations in the Global South. Thus, it would assist these nations in their efforts to create stable governments, develop infrastructure, and lift their peoples from poverty.
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Following the end of the Cold War and with the advent of globalism, the term internationalism took on a different semantic hue, and was transmogrified to mean open borders, global supply chains, and trans-national corporations whose arbitrage-based comprador business dealings held no fidelity to any sovereign state.
During this post-Cold War free market euphoria, American-based corporations hollowed out the heartland of the United States by seeking low-cost manufacturing in the Global South, outsourcing high-paying jobs that had once provided families with financial stability and security. Timber, mining, fishing, oil, and a host of other industries critical to American stability and security were offshored, leading to blight, poverty, and hopelessness across America writ large.
Higher environmental regulations in the United States merely shifted environmental and labor costs to other nations with lower regulatory standards, thereby leading to worse environmental degradation and near-slave labor conditions for foreign citizens. All the while, transnational corporate interests and their shareholders lined their pockets and deposited their earnings in offshore tax havens.
This open-market globalism led to China becoming America’s peer adversary in Great Power Competition, a fact that now threatens the United States’s security. Indeed, America’s economy and military now depend on rare earths and other critical materials, which are mined, processed, and manufactured in far-off locales vulnerable to geopolitical events.
Currently, China produces 90 percent of America’s antibiotics, and ninety percent of Rare Earths are mined or processed in China.
Consider further that a single Chinese shipbuilder—China State Shipbuilding Corporation—produced more commercial vessels by tonnage in 2024 than the entire United States shipbuilding industry has built since the end of World War II.
America must reinvest and rebuild its manufacturing base with a strong domestic workforce. To do this, the federal government needs to launch a strategic nationwide initiative that provides technical and vocational training for the American people, who need it most.
This writer believes that every student deserves an opportunity for a college education. However, what is equally true but less often said is that many Americans do not want a college education, and not receiving a four-year diploma should not be seen as something to be ashamed of.
Indeed, blue-collar jobs have acquired a stigma or stereotype of somehow being of lower status, with the individuals who haven’t received a formal education being perceived as somehow less intelligent than their college-educated peers.
This perception is a psycho-societally manufactured projection generated by globalization and America’s shift from the “real economy” to the “service economy” over the last several decades.
With the advancement of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, these blue-collar workers will need technical and vocational training schools that ride the edge of technological advancement. Each program will be specific and tailored to each individual industry.
Vocational programs could facilitate an institutional rebranding led by the American higher education system by re-framing the semantics of blue-collar jobs to “new collar jobs”—a tip of the hat to the elision of the digital and the physical.
Many prominent politicians on both sides of the political aisle have been promoting a de-risking strategy from China instead of decoupling. However, as pointed out above, investing in a nation such as Vietnam, where China controls its water, electricity, and the majority of its manufacturing and trade, does not lower risk but raises it. It is merely a continuation of business as usual in seeking cheaper markets as China’s middle class rises and profit margins decrease.
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Investing in India is much the same, as it will simply become another peer rival like China. Read the India Way, a book published by India’s External Affairs Minister, and the reader will observe quite readily that India is not focused on Western allies but rather national interests.
The United States does not need India or China, but should let them balance themselves out along with Russia on the geopolitical stage. America must protect itself and give its citizens pride in their educational and vocational opportunities.
While China may control the Asian landmass, the Indo-Pacific remains firmly in control of the Americanist Alliance System. The United States has been a sea power since the heady days of Theodore Roosevelt, and it must remain so. While the United States may still rule the waves, this primacy will not last without the reinvigoration of America’s manufacturing base.
To be sure, there has been much talk about the Asian Century; however, this reality is yet to be determined. Large populations are often as much a burden as they are an asset, and while the Eurasian landmass is riven by fault lines of geopolitical conflict, the United States is protected by two oceans and enjoys abundant natural resources and manufacturing potential. It also controls the financial system and protects freedom of navigation with a first-class military.
Therefore, the future is not determined, and China’s rise as the next great superpower is not inevitable. While maps may tell a story, history teaches us many lessons. Perhaps the most profound lesson is that history is written by the victors.
Therefore, it is up to the United States to decide whether future history books will be written in Chinese.
Image: “Industrial Patriot” by Nikolas Zane on Flickr
“Therefore, it is up to the United States to decide whether future history books will be written in Chinese.”
The path offered here is almost surely going to guarantee that the future will belong to China. You people are living in the past, not in the mid-twentieth century, but somewhere in the eighteenth.
There is an amazing article in the NYT about new car factories opening up in China. There is another article today somewhere about EV chargers in China that work in 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, Ford is milking itself to pay most of its profits out in dividends. Their stock has gone nowhere since forever.
There is talk about Chemistry in the U.S. and Europe being left in the dust by China. I don’t believe this, not yet, but I think they are giving it their best shot.
Meanwhile, wack jobs in the U.S. are advocating for abandoning government support for science.
Your comment misreads our position entirely. We’re not advocating abandoning science but exposing what institutions falsely label as “science.” Taxpayer dollars should fund true progress—medical breakthroughs, engineering feats, and cutting-edge technologies—not wasted on irreproducible studies or phantom issues. Vast sums now flow to DEI-centered research, which yields no tangible benefits and favors ideology over rigor. Worse, university funding is devoured by administrative bloat, padding bureaucracies while starving actual research.
Your claim that reindustrializing America guarantees China’s future is baffling. China’s rise—its factories, EV chargers, and chemical advances—stems from America’s missteps: exporting jobs, admitting their students to our universities, and partnering with institutions like Tsinghua. These enabled China to steal our technologies and become a peer rival. You praise China’s new factories yet argue U.S. reindustrialization would somehow empower them? That’s incoherent. China’s growth relies on our markets and innovations. By rebuilding our manufacturing base, we’d cut dependence on Chinese exports, reclaim industries like rare earths and tech, and restore economic and geopolitical dominance. Ford’s stagnation and dividend payouts only underscore the need to revitalize American industry, not cede ground to China. Reindustrializing reverses the policies that fueled China’s ascent. How does that hand them the future?