The Fragile Chinese Empire

China wants to be the next global superpower; it won't succeed

Paramilitary policemen patrol at the Tiananmen Square outside the Forbidden City, which was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, in Beijing, China, in this file photo. Feng Li/Getty Images

Let’s call China what it really is—not a “People’s Republic” or an ordinary country, no. It is an empire.

It’s a regional empire, true; but it still rules over many nationalities and ethnicities, with dozens of languages spoken as well as ongoing tensions in regions such as Xinjiang Province and Tibet, which bristle at the Han Chinese rule over them.

Xi’s Big Plan

Of course, China has big ideas about becoming a global empire. To do so, it must replace the United States, which it is certainly trying to do. But bilateral currency agreements, global partnerships with multinational corporations, and a huge domestic market aside, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China (CCP) might find the global empire business tougher than they imagined.