China has not replaced America — and it never will

For starters, China doesn't want to be a global hegemon

China military
(Image credit: (Elizabeth Dalziel - Pool/Getty Images))

Many people seem to think it's simply a matter of when, not if, China takes the reins of world leadership. How, they think, can America's 314 million people permanently outproduce a population that outnumbers the U.S. by over a billion people?

This facile assumption is wrong. China is not replacing the United States as the global hegemon. And it never will.

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Zack Beauchamp is a Reporter/Blogger for ThinkProgress. He previously contributed to Andrew Sullivan's The Dish at Newsweek/Daily Beast, and has also written for Foreign Policy and Tablet magazines. Zack holds B.A.s in Philosophy and Political Science from Brown University and an M.Sc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.