[Barrera]

> How about if China decides to fill the power vacuum that the isolationist US leaves.

Zeihan argues that this is impossible on demographic grounds. The after-effects of the One Child Policy and the mass migration from farms to cities ensures a lack of soldiers, a greying population, and economic/military decline. Throw in Xi's unprecedented cult of personality that prevents anyone reporting bad news as the icing on the cake.

The US has nothing to fear from China, so Zeihan says.

[giantrobot]

Yeah he also predicted China and Germany were going to collapse a decade ago. He makes a lot of strong claims but does not show his work. So he's about as accurate as astrology, when he's right he's not necessarily right because of any great internal understanding.

[dirtyid]

This arguement is questionable because the amount of bodies and resources it takes to cultivate and maintain modern tier1 military is not substantial at PRC scale. Even PRC with South Korea TFR (worlds worst) will be generating millions of new births, more than US generates via births + immigration. Or that current PLA budget is ~2% and major powers including PRC has gone up to 7%+ during periods of "peaceful" competition. There isn't a credible scenario within this century where PRC will lack bodies or resources to field a military that is rapidly closing gap and will likely contest US for global interests within short/medium term.