Wait, but Chinese society is currently predicated on the same instrument of expansion. Moreover, it adopted this from the West.
It's part of it. This world order is more hegemonic than popularly imagined.
palladiummag.com/2020/02/05/jia…
China is a periphery power of the American world order.
1) Chinese victory + renewed/new instrument of expansion
2) Chinese victory + continued stagnation
3) American victory + renewal
4) American victory + stagnation
We won't consider a Mule scenario where something else disrupts everything here.
Scenario 2) would probably create a Stage 5 universal empire scenario. Hegemony, but decline.
Only victory combined with renewed innovation puts America back on the path of expansion.
1) Our world order is more properly defined by industrial capital than values, language, etc
2) The American world order is not opposed to China, but includes it--and China knows it
3) Innovation is literally of civilizational importance to America