For decades, China has been preparing for “competition in the world’s literal and figurative frontiers,” including the deep seas, the poles, cyberspace, and outer space, writes Elizabeth Economy in a new essay in the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. Beijing’s goal is to dominate the “underlying systems” that will be essential to global trade and security in the years ahead.
But while Beijing has invested in hard capabilities and expanded its reach in international institutions, the United States’ polar icebreakers, space technologies, and deep-seabed mining equipment “either already lag well behind those of China or soon will,” Economy writes. Washington, therefore, is “not just abdicating its role in the current international system” but also “falling behind in the fight to define the next one.”
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