[Photo/Agencies]

Given the changes and conflicts in 2022, the world will experience uncertainties when strengths and vulnerabilities among the major powers are shifted. US capitalism and its empire are widely perceived as waning, said Richard D. Wolff, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, in an article published in Asia Times,on Dec 19, 2022.

According to the article, US hegemony has governed and held together a particular global arrangement of economies since World War II. However, the short-term instabilities and long-term trends inside and outside the great powers has undermined US hegemony. A struggle to shape the emerging "new world order" is underway.

A survey conducted by French think tank École de Guerre Économique (EGE), in July 2022, was quoted as answering that the United States was France's greatest threat when respondents were asked to name five foreign powers that most threaten France's interests.

Besides, many leaders and influencers around the world criticize and resent the last 75 years of economic hegemony and self-serving policies wielded by the United States, such as new US subsidies for automobiles produced inside the United States, it said.

The US has shifted from a policy of neoliberal globalization to one of economic nationalism after more than two decades of doing poorly in competition with China, said the article. "US global empire has lost power, the United States lost wars in Asia, China has emerged as the first serious economic competitor against the United States since at least 1945."

The article mentioned that China's economic growth encountered problems but continued to be remarkably positive and often crucially supportive of the world's economic conditions in ways that were once more closely associated with the role of the United States.

An old empire (the US) is now clearly in decline, and a new one (China) is emerging. The only other potential major power is the EU, but the disunity among its members greatly weakens its competitiveness relative to the United States and China, the article concluded.