KEY POINTS:
Since the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US has witnessed an alarming decline in its global standing. By this year that trend has assumed almost catastrophic proportions.
A BBC World Service survey of more than 26,000 people across 25 countries found that only 29 per
cent believed the US was having a positive influence internationally.
For some observers, such a trend could be symptomatic of a deeper decline in the dominance of global politics by the US.
Professor Paul Kennedy, for example, has noted that historically no great power has exercised its dominance permanently, and the US may prove no exception to this rule.
Such an assessment seems to rest, above all, on the proposition that the US economy is declining in relation to the world's other major economies and that this pattern, if continued, will sooner or later eat into the military and political power of the US.
Certainly there are recent signs China is emerging as a key actor in the global economy in the 21st century.
On the February 27 the Chinese stock market experienced its worst day of trading, with the Shanghai Composite Index falling nearly 9 per cent. The slump in Chinese stocks triggered falls globally in other markets across Asia and Europe.
This was perhaps the most visible international expression of Chinese economic power since the end of the Cold War, and graphically highlighted the extent to which Beijing has integrated itself into the global economy.
In contrast to previous capital market slumps, it was China that served as the centre of gravity for this global share slide.
Investors, wary of the sudden prospect of Government regulatory interference in Chinese markets, coupled with broader market concerns over the health of the US economy, particularly its record current account deficit, responded with a global share sell-off.
The essential facts of the Chinese economic miracle are clear. Beijing began to move away from a Soviet-style command economy in the late 1970s, and by the mid-1990s economic reform had transformed the country.
Consistently high economic growth - it stands above 9 per cent a year - and the rise of Chinese manufactured products on the world market became key features of this resurgence.
Status projects such as the launching of Chinese astronauts into orbit in 2003 and the 2008 Olympics preparations have largely gone smoothly.
And it will come as no surprise to Paul Kennedy and many other observers that Beijing is now seeking an international role commensurate with its growing capabilities.
In the Asia-Pacific region China has recently asserted itself in relations with its major trading partner, Japan. Angered by a Japanese reluctance to face a history that included wartime atrocities against Chinese citizens, and Tokyo's solidarity with the Bush Administration's policy of support for Taiwan, Beijing sanctioned angry popular demonstrations in 2005 against Japanese diplomatic and commercial interests in the country.
At the same time, China continues to invest heavily in new military hardware and the Bush Administration, much to the discomfort of its close ally, Australia, continues to warn about the growing Chinese threat in the international sphere.
In August 2005 China conducted its first military exercises with Russia. While these manoeuvres and regular summits between the political leadership of the two countries bolster the rhetoric of a strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow, they also reflect common opposition to President Bush's stated determination to maintain US global primacy.
Interestingly, China's international emergence coincides with clear signs that the US has over-extended itself in the global "war on terror".
Since 9/11, US military expenditure has dramatically increased and by the fiscal year 2008 the military budget is expected to exceed US$600 billion ($819 billion), the highest level of US military spending since the end of World War II. The Iraq invasion alone cost the US taxpayer more than US$300 billion.
Such over-spending on the military - the US accounts for nearly half of the world's military expenditure - is rapidly increasing the US debt burden and undermining domestic and international market confidence in the sustainability of its economy.
So are we approaching a tipping point where a flagging US will be gradually displaced by a surging China as the world's number one power?
There are at least two reasons to be cautious. First, the impressive momentum of Chinese economic growth since the mid-1980s cannot be assumed to be a permanently operating factor. The increasing integration of China into the global market economy is generating its own new pressures for political reform within the country.
At present the communist regime retains strict control on the domestic media, right down a "Great Firewall of China" that blocks websites deemed to be threatening to the political order.
Nevertheless, reports of unrest have periodically surfaced in the Western media.
A glimpse of the sort of convulsions that may follow was provided by the Tiananmen Square student demonstrations of 1989 that saw 3000 people, predominantly pro-democracy activists, killed by the Chinese military in the centre of Beijing.
With growing prosperity and the spread of personal communication devices like fax machines, mobile phones and internet access, as well as growing international links, China is steadily becoming more difficult to control.
Second, there is a major difference between the US and other great powers in history.
America is the first and only world power with a democratic political system. America's democracy - characterised by competition between different political elites through regular elections - provides a built-in capacity for innovation, adaptation and renewal.
So while the rise of China's economic power is certainly hurting US manufacturing giants like Ford, and Chinese diplomacy can derive some short-term comfort from America's declining image, it would be a mistake to overstate China's ability to displace the US as the world's sole superpower in the foreseeable future.
American power has certainly declined in global terms under the Bush Administration but the US retains the political capacity to bounce back. Indeed, one senses that many of America's current problems can be ameliorated or solved by the election of a new administration in Washington with a more realistic view of American interests in a globalising world.
In contrast, China's looming difficulties in the 21st century may yet require a change in the country's political system in order to be fixed.
America is not destined to remain the world's only superpower, but it will take more than just economic and military muscle to become a credible rival in the age of globalisation.
* Aaron Lim completed a Master of International Studies degree at the University of Otago; Robert G. Patman is a professor in the department of political studies at the University of Otago.
