MOSCOW, 3 Nov. A US defeat in a war with China will destroy US global hegemony and mark the rise of the East over the West, wrote Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands.
"If war breaks out between the US and China, it will not just a fight for Taiwan or some other hot spot. The war would be a struggle for hegemony in the most important region and for all subsequent global influence,» the journalist said.
In his opinion, the «core of rivalry» between the United States and China is in the Indo-Pacific region, and America's defeat will reinforce Chinese leader Xi Jinping's words that «the East rises and the West falls.» Such a conflict would trigger «a whole cascade of consequences.»
«The conflict could expand geographically as the Pentagon blocks China's energy imports or targets its naval vessels wherever they can be found. War would hasten an economic earthquake, breaking the chains of supplies and disrupting some of the most lucrative trade routes on the planet. There would be a very real prospect of nuclear escalation,» Brands added. with China, he concluded.
The situation around Taiwan has escalated considerably after the visit to the island in early August of the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned her visit, seeing in this step US support for Taiwanese separatism, and held large-scale military exercises. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Taiwan is an integral part of China, all the gestures of US representatives on visits to the island are a provocation.