Chinese century poses big challenges for Taiwan, US

Of course, there are some who refute this neologism, but the developments after the Vietnam War in the middle of the last century, the recent failure by President Barack Obama to rally all Southeast Asian nations behind the US to help contain the People’s Republic, as well as the United Kingdom’s vote on possibly leaving the European Union, all signal the end of Pax Americana.
One interesting point here is that Spengler made the prediction before the Chinese Revolution of 1911. China at that time was still ruled by the Manchu and considered semi-colonised by the West and Japan, which started colonising Taiwan after its secession from Qing China following the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and defeated Tsarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Few believed Spengler’s prediction would be borne out.
Spengler’s prediction is based on Arnold Toynbee’s cyclical history of Chinese civilisation. Chinese dynasties rose and fell. A dynasty was created or born, reached its apex, and then came to an end or died to complete its cycle. But Chinese civilization has progressed as the world’s oldest continuing one for over 42 centuries simply because a dynastic cycle always followed each toppled dynasty. The Great Qing Empire was toppled in the 1911 Chinese Revolution, and the Republic of China was created in 1912 to provide a catalyst for the founding of the People’s Republic of China to start another cycle that is expected to culminate around the middle of this century, according to the neologisms.
More than reasonably likely, if one believes that history repeats itself. Well, at the very least, China was the world’s largest economy in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its GDP exceeded that of the US as measured by purchasing power in 2014... and China will certainly expand its lead in coming years.
It does not stand to reason for the US to reassert Pax Americana to contain the People’s Republic on the rise, simply because it is uncontainable. It behoves Washington to emulate London who formally ended the Pax Britannica in 1968 by announcing that the UK would withdraw all troops from the East of Suez in 1971 after its fiasco in the Suez Crisis of 1956. Obama can’t and won’t do so, but his successor may have to scrap Washington’s current “shift to Asia” policy to concentrate on the solution to the problems of the Islamic State that Washington has helped create.
For Taiwan, it is incumbent on the new administration of President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, which will be inaugurated on May 20, to devise an acceptable compromise on the “1992 Consensus” in order to survive as a viable economy by not antagonising the People’s Republic on which the Republic of China is relying increasingly heavily for economic growth. The consensus is an unsigned modus vivendi, known in Taiwan as the “one China with different interpretations” principle. It is a legal basis for the peaceful development of relations between Taiwan and China, as well as the sine qua non Beijing lays down for cross-strait interchange. Tsai has been equivocal in her stance on the consensus. Faced with the modus vivendi to maintain the status quo across the Strait, the new president needs to find a way to establish a bridge with Beijing on the issue.