Will this be an American or a
Chinese Century?
An old friend
and I exchange jokes, lists of movies, television shows, books, and news
opinions. Among the various clippings he sends me are news items about how well
China is doing and why he feels that this will be a Chinese century. I send him
clippings about how well the US is doing and that this will continue to be a US
century. To compare and to try and predict the future, I thought it might be
interesting to see the history of previous dominant powers and compare the
difference between the US and China.
How dominant
powers were built?
Historically a
country’s rise to a become a dominant power resulted from its military
dominance whether it was Alexander who came to India conquering everything in
his path or Genghis Khan and his descendants from Mongolia who extended their empire
from China and Korea in the east to the shores of Adriatic Sea in the West. Almost
a century later Osman founded the Ottoman Empire which included all of the
Middle East, Hungary and Ukraine. His descendants ruled from the late 1300s to
the early 20th century, probably the longest dynasty apart from the Japanese. Babur,
a descendant of Timur lane, invaded India in 1526 and established the Mughal
empire which lasted for almost two and half centuries. It was not until Britain had fully colonized India by
the first half of the 1800’s that it become a global empire.(1)
While military power continued as the
driving force for domination into the mid nineteenth century, with the emerging
industrialization, the dynamics flipped. It was no longer a case of capturing
ever expanding land bases, by taxing the peasants and conscripting soldiers to
provide the military power.
With industrialization, the British Empire
relied on its colonies for the supply of the raw materials and as markets for
their finished goods. Economic power became more important as it could enable
them to build up its their military capability plus new weaponry.
Do you need to be
a dominant power to be a threat to others?
The dropping of
the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, changed the rules of war. Technology
in the form of the ability to make atomic weapons was what everyone aspired to.
Russia, China, India, Pakistan and even North Korea developed the ability to
make atom bombs. They also developed the delivery capabilities and are now a
threat to their neighbors and to the world at large. Like Russia, you do not
have to be a major economic power to become a military power. While the big
powers might push around some of these smaller countries, they are careful not
to push them over the edge, which might result in them using their atomic
weapons.
Also, software
is now the driver for almost everything. Smaller powers with technology
capabilities, can cripple a larger power temporarily by hacking their strategic
systems. Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and other countries have been accused
by the US of stealing data or bringing to a halt, strategic installations such
as oil pipelines or electricity grids as it happened recently in the US.
That is why in
the future we are likely to have skirmishes but no major wars. Perhaps it’s an
over simplification. While countries continue to spend hundreds of billions on
arming themselves with traditional weaponry and building up stockpiles of ICBMs,
most of them will remain in the silos and become obsolete. The future wars will
most likely be fought by machines. You will not need huge military manpower. As
in industry you will need smart, educated soldiers who can operate these
machines.
Finally, with
the interlocking of trade, the larger economies might come to a brink, but they
will not risk economic suicide by cutting off their biggest market or their
biggest suppliers or where a substantial portion of their reserves are invested.
While the perception is that the US is more reliant on China, one tends to
overlook the fact that America is also a substantial supplier of agricultural
and animal products.
Also, if there
is a country which is strategic in terms of location or for raw material, or if
a country tries to take control of the major trade route, America, will likely
intervene. Since WW II, America has been
involved in 17 wars. While some countries might try to poke the eagle, it is
unlikely that they will push it to the extreme which leads to war.
Requirements to
become a dominant power.
It’s not just having the world’s largest GDP. It is much more than that. In my opinion broadly speaking the requirements to become a dominant power in the future are a large population, predominantly domestic consumption growth model, superb infrastructure both physical ( in terms of roads, bridges, telecom ), educational, research and cultural impact on the rest of the world. It is interesting to look at China and the United States from this perspective.
Population
We can compare
the two countries, the United States and China, and see how they have risen to
power since the end of the Second World War and how they are likely to perform
in the future. Looking first at the population.
China’s
population grew from 554 million in 1950 to 1,400 million in 2020 and is
expected to peak in 2035 at 1,461 million. By the end of the century, it is
expected to be down to 1,064 million.
America by comparison had a population of 158 million
in 1950. By 2021 it had increased to 281 million. It is expected to be 433
million by 2100. The increase of 145 million by the end of century will be
driven by a signification increase in new immigrants. Assisting this will also
be America’s fertility rate at 1.78 which will be much higher than China’s rate
at 1.69.(2)
Why has America succeeded and why is it difficult to
replicate their model?
After its
independence, America with its huge land mass, grew its population by the
influx of white immigrants and African American slave. It gradually began its
conversion from a supplier of raw material to its own industrialization.
America’s intervention in the two World Wars, was the beginning of the change of balance of power from Europe to the United States. By the end of the Second World War, America emerged as the dominant economic and military power in the world. During the early sixties, the European countries lost most of their colonies and the American century began.
In my opinion the reasons for America’s success, were as follows:
· I It had ample raw materials. In the seventies, it
became dependent on the import of oil, but now with the shale production
America has become a net exporter of oil.
· It has a large land mass and enough space to
accommodate an ever-increasing population.
· Since independence its population has been increasing
with immigration accounting for a significant percentage. Starting in the
fifties, it changed its immigration policies and allowed the influx of
immigrants from all over the world.
· The universities attract the best and the brightest
from all over the world. The refugees and the other immigrants provide the
labor which gravitates towards the low-end jobs such as meat packing, chicken
sexing and dairy industry particularly in the rural areas, where the second and
third generation immigrants do not want to live or work.
· Its deep capital markets.
Also, there is
no country in the world which can match the quantity and quality of the
academic network and research labs which America has.
China’s growth
After the end of
the Second World War, both Japan and China were in a similar position. Japan
following its defeat and China at the tail end of its civil war were both on
their knees.
Japan with the
help of its American overlords and its past experience as an industrial power
bounced back quickly. China in the meantime went through a period of turmoil with
its various policies such as The Great Leap Forward, The Cultural Revolution
and the chaos caused by the Gang of Four. In the early eighties Deng Xiaoping
implemented reforms which transformed China in a manner no county has done in
the history of the world. As the world watched in amazement, it bootstrapped
itself to become a major economic power and which it is now using to build up
its military capability.
China used its
cheap labor and built up its huge manufacturing capacity. After joining the World
Trade Organization in 2001, it was able to boost its exports. It became
the world’s factory. On a parallel basis it built new townships and state of
the art infrastructure with bullet trains, tunnels, bridges and futuristic
airports. Like Japan in 1964 and Korea in 1988, China celebrated its own coming
out party by hosting the Olympics in 2008.Its Gross National Income per capita
rose from USD 840 in 2000 to UD 8,690 in 2017.
Its initial growth
in the eighties, was driven by investments from the Chinese diaspora from Hong
Kong, Taiwan and South East Asia countries The inflow ramped up particularly after
China joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001. This led to the
ramp up of Foreign Direct Investments from USD 42.1 billion in 2000 to a peak
of USD 290.93 billion to USD 155.82 billion in 2019.
China, through which most of the world’s new supply
chains now ran, saw its share of global exports rise from about 2% to 9% (from
2000 to 2008). Its share of global GDP rose from 4% to
12%. (3)
China following the
Microsoft model of growth
At the risk of
being accused of being flippant, China could be said to be following the
Microsoft model of growth to become the second largest economy in the world.
If you look at Microsoft,
you will see that almost from the start it did not really come up with any
significant new products on its own. It took off when it signed a contract with
IBM where they provided the operating system MS-DOS which they had purchased
from the Seattle Computer System in July 1981. This gave them
the huge corporate customer base and which they tried to protect by building a
moat around it, but ultimately ran into antitrust issues. All of Its other
major successful products are either purchased or copied from other successful
products.
It is only when
Satya Nadella became the CEO that Microsoft started opening up and started
synching with other systems that its market cap shot up almost 500 percent, to become
the second largest company in the world. Of course, as a corporate there is
nothing wrong with what they have done or are doing and the shareholders are delighted.
Similarly, as
China grew economically it built moats and firewalls around itself particularly
in new technology as Microsoft did in its early days. It was happy to allow
consumer companies such as McDonalds, KFC and Starbucks to expand, but when it
came to technology companies, it blocked them, which enabled the domestic
companies with its large consumer base to expand. Quite a few of the major global
technology companies are not allowed to operate in China.
Among the list of 100 tech companies there are
7 Chinese companies and 57 US companies. Among the top hundred companies by
market capitalization, there are 10 Chinese companies and 55 American companies.
(4) (5)
China’s ambition is to be
what it was during the period from the 1200’s to the early 1800’s, the dominant
power in the world.
While China has
built numerous prestigious universities and research labs. These institutions
have a short history whereas some of America’s top universities were
established prior to their independence.
After the war
with the emergence of the Chinese Communist Party, China followed the Soviet
model of education particularly at the post-secondary level with emphasis on
scientific and technological training. In 1949 China had 180 institutions of
higher education enrolling 80,000 students. By 1957, this had jumped to
440,000. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the national organization primarily
responsible for training of research scientist, had thirty-one research institutes
in 1952 and 170 in 1958.This changed
with the Great Leap Forward movement and the subsequent Cultural Revolution,
science and technology were downgraded and the educational system was in a
state of turmoil till the mid-seventies. (6)
With the strong economic growth from the eighties onwards,
emphasis was placed on building up its educational infrastructure. China had approximately 3100 universities in 2017, and
is ranked as having the world’s second highest number of top universities and
in 2017 is supposed to have surpassed the US with the scientific publications.
Also, it crossed the US with the number of universities in the ranking (204 vs
198). (7)
However, it is a question of quality vs quantity. Are these
universities attracting world class professors and students?
During the
academic year 2019-2020, America had 1,121,981 foreign students out of which
179,073 were in the doctoral programmes. Chinese students numbered 372,532, the
largest among all the countries.
In 2018, (the last year for which
data was available) 492,185 international students from 196 countries were
studying in China. They were enrolled in 1,004 higher education institutions. (8)
The difference
in number is perhaps explained by the cultural differences. It is reflected in
a letter from a foreign student in China which was published by the largest
newspaper in China, the China Daily on the 2nd of April 2017.
“Higher education is much like kindergarten. They will tell you
what to do and it is very certain you are the student; hence you have to obey,
you don't qualify to have a say in what you want to be educated about.”
“From the ordinary eyes,
even the lowest ranked university in the United States is more prestigious than
the highest ranked Chinese University.”
“I see staying in China to do a doctorate program, actually doing
a doctorate program in a Chinese university – a step towards bombing your own
ideas. From the first day of the PhD, you would know how you will finish your
PhD dissertation.”
In terms of
research in China it (at the university, and the government lab level) is top
driven. They have to support the missions of government agencies
According to the
Conversation.com – a not for profit academic research site headquartered in
Australia but with a global foot print “The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS),
oversees some 120 institutes – including China’s “big science” facilities – and
three institutions of higher education. scientists in many of its labs
now engage in world-class research across a range of disciplines, including
quantum physics, mathematics and neuroscience. ….
Over the past two
decades, China’s top universities have emerged as important centres of basic
and applied research, while also promoting a culture supportive of high-tech
entrepreneurship….
R & D in support of
the military, in cooperation with civilian sectors, and guided by
civil-military integration policies, it’s producing increasingly sophisticated national
defense systems…
In the last few years,
China has established national laboratories and other major new national
research centres, inspired by the national lab experience in the U.S. and other
countries. These new institutions –
cross-disciplinary and problem-focused by design – are engaged in world-class research of international interest.
For example, the University of Science and Technology in Hefei is home to a
leading facility for quantum physics and quantum information.”
However, the question is whether the government driven science-state
relation model is the right one for innovations and breakthrough in technology
or science rather than being just defense related? Also will this model to date
has not lead to ground breaking innovation or technology or have staff who have
been nominated for a Noble Prize.
America
Many of the prominent universities
such as Brown, Harvard, Dartmouth, Columbia, Yale, Princeton have their roots
from the days when America was still a colony.
Two important
policies put in place in 1945 and 1958 under President Franklin D Roosevelt and
President Dwight Eisenhower gave the impetus to the development of ground
breaking technologies across different sectors.
In 1945, the US
Office of Science Research and Development prepared a report by Dr. Vannevar
Bush “Science the Endless Frontier”. He recommended a three-way partnership of
government, business and academia. He suggested that government should not
build huge research labs, but should fund research, at universities and
corporate labs.
In 1958, President Dwight D Eisenhower passed the National
Defense Education Act providing funding to United States education institutions
at all levels. The objective was to increase the technological sophistication
and power of the United States to be able to compete with the Soviet Union.
It did that by
strengthening the American school system, and offering scholarships and loans
to students preparing to be teachers and those who studied mathematics,
engineering, science and modern foreign languages. It also provided grants to
and fellowship to graduate and doctoral students. (9)
Eisenhower also set up The Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a research agency initially set up for the
development of emerging technologies for use by the military. However, it works
with academia, industry and government to formulate and execute projects to
expand the frontiers of technology and science, often beyond immediate military
requirements. (10).
The Economist magazine called DARPA” the
agency that shaped the modern world” Many of the technologies which we use
today have their origins in DARPA, such as weather satellites, Unix, GPS, transistors, microchips, computers, graphical user
interfaces, GPS, lasers, the internet, and search engines, drones, voice
interface, windows, Siri, google maps, gene
editing and the list goes on. According to the
Financial Times, a key component of the mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer and
Moderna, uses a patent developed by an agency of DARPA (FT April 21,2021). These
are the inventions which lead to the establishment of new industries and
changed the world.
An
example of the close working relationship between the private sector and the US
government is the use of the Cloud computing facility of Microsoft and Amazon
Web Services which the Department of Defense is discussing for their needs.
Also, the contract which SpaceX has with NASA for delivering supplies to the
space station and Blue Origin has for Nasa’s Human Landing System.
There are now ARPA’s set up for homeland security,
intelligence and energy and now health.
China might have its own version of DARPA, but
very little is known outside or disclosed or any mention of breakthrough
technology is mentioned publicly.
An example of the impact of DARPA is the work
done by Dr.Jenniffer Doudna who together
with a French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Noble Prize for gene
editing which is going to change health care radically.
Reading the book about her, The Codebreakers by
Walter Isaacson, one is amazed at the broad spread specialization available
across the academic institutions in the United States. The network of top-class
American universities which have professors who are Noble Prize winners is so
widespread that students can choose from a variety of top-class professors or
academics under whom they can study or do research in their labs.
While it is a
competitive environment, there is also widespread cooperation and information
sharing. This extends to universities outside the United States as well. In the list of
approximately twenty plus individuals involved in research on gene editing and
related discoveries before and after the award of the Noble Prize, there are at
least 6-8 Chinese students, professors involved, who had come to America to
study and stayed on. In fact, another Chinese Professor Feng Zhang from MIT,
was a strong competitor for the Noble Prize for this discovery. That speaks for
itself.
In terms of the
University affiliations of the Noble Prize winners since 1901 of the top 30
universities, 21 were universities from the United States. Of the four winners
from China, two (for literature) were from Beijing Normal University and one (for
peace) from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Tu Youyou (Physiology or
Medicine) from Peking University Health Science Centre.
Infrastructure
China
A decision was made in 1978, during the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to open up the economy. Over the next few years, it took a number of key steps.
It established the special economic zones,
opened up the coastal cities and the economic and technology zones. These steps
resulted in a boom initially in Southern China, but which quickly spread across
the country. (12)
China’s spurt on infrastructure since its
opening up has resulted in China having the best infrastructure in the world.
With its new townships, its subway systems, its bullet trains, its state of the
airport has left the world in awe. This hasn’t stopped. 13 major cities and provinces, including
Beijing, Shanghai and Fujian province, released investment plans and “major
infrastructure” projects for 2020. Eight cities and provinces announced their
investment budgets, which in total amounts to 33.83 trillion yuan (USD 4.8
trillion). (13)
We have also seen with awe China’s ability
to build high rise buildings and hospitals within days. Its ability to deal
with and control the spread of the Covid pandemic has been amazing,
particularly for a country with the largest population in the world. No other
country has been able to come close.
America
America, had a clean state when it started
building its infrastructure. Railroads played a large role in the development
of the United States from the industrial revolution in the North East (1810 -1850)
to the settlement of the West (1850 -1890).
In the twentieth century America’s
infrastructure was built in two spurts.
The first under President Franklin D.
Roosevelts New Deal Program when under the Work Administration Program USD 4.9
billion was spent to build the public infrastructure such as parks, schools and
roads. More than 620,000 miles of streets, 10,000 bridges, various housing projects,
airports, utilities and flood control systems with the largest being the
Tennessee Valley Authority which lead to the development of Tennessee, Alabama,
Mississippi, Kentucky and parts of Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. (14)(15)
The second was under President Eisenhower. In 1956 Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act and created the Highway Trust Fund to pay for the construction of the largest public works project in American History. The 48,000-mile road network became the lifeblood of the US economy. Construction of the original Interstate Highway System was proclaimed complete in 1992 The cost of construction of the Interstate Highway System was approximately $114 billion. This gave American the best network of rail and road in the world. However, since then America’s infrastructure has been deteriorating and it is lagging behind a lot of the developed countries even in terms of internet connectivity both land and mobile. The American politicians have finally have recognised this and are now in the process of passing bills to bring the infrastructure up to date.
Soft Power
Soft power has an ability to influence and
entice people to accept the dominant power’s culture and thoughts and political
thoughts and ideology.
China
Chinese culture is one of the world’s
oldest and has influenced the world in many ways. Its art, architecture,
calligraphy have influenced the other countries in East Asia. Over the
centuries major inventions from China which have impacted the world include
paper making, movable type printing, compass, mechanical clock, tea production,
alcohol, silk, porcelain, bronze, acupuncture, row crop farming, seed drill,
earthquake detector, gunpowder, rockets, cross bow and the list goes on.
The China Silk Road set in motion global
trade from China to Greece, starting during the Han dynasty in 130 BC and trade
continued until 1453 when the Ottoman Empire blocked the trade. (16)
However, over the centuries its global
influence waned. Starting in 2004, as a means of exercising and expanding its
soft power it set up Confucius Institutes and by 2014 it had allocated a budget
of USD 10 billion. However, this has met with concern that these are part of
China’s propaganda apparatus and are meeting with resistance in some countries
in the west.
Countries are suspicious of Chinese
equipment and even apps as they feel that that these are used as Trojan horses
to gain information and data and some of them have banned them. (17)
In the meantime, some of the other Asian
countries have been able to expand their soft power particularly Korea where
its music (the K pop), its movies and tv shows are now popular not just in
South East Asia, but also in South Asia and in the West.
Japan has had a strong influence on Europe since
the Meiji Era. The French artists from the Impressionists to Art Nouveau and
the Aesthetic Movement were all inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Monet, Degas and Van Gogh are some
of the artists who were influenced by Japonisome.
Even in modern times, Japanese
architecture, fashion and manga comics are some of the ways in which the Japan
continues to influence not just the west, but also Asia. (18)
America
Since the fifties American has had a very
strong influence in terms of political thought and culture. It has convinced
the world that the democratic capitalist political theory is the best way to
eliminate poverty. It has also been in the forefront in providing aid and
assistance to countries in need.
American cultural influence has been
particularly strong since the fifties. In the sixties when American troops were
stationed in Europe and Asia, American music and movies in particular became very
popular.
Also, of the hundreds of thousands of
foreign students who study in America, most of them go back heavily influenced by
American politics, movies, music, culture, fashion, food and technology. Some
of the tech companies in China were started by individuals who had studies in
the US or worked for US companies. They look to America as their role model.
Its soft power through its streaming networks is also integrating shows from all countries and helping the world become global culturally – Turkish, Scandinavian, Korean, Japanese, Hong Kong, Nigerian, Indian and other shows which are now being viewed across the world. But the role model for them is Hollywood and all aspire to win the Oscars. Soon the satellite linked broadband internet will be offered primarily by companies such as Amazon, Space X, and some others which will reach the remotest corners of the earths. Again, it will be the American companies.
A guess at the future
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
projects that China’s real GDP will slow considerable over the next several
decades, eventually converging on US growth rates by the year 2037. For some
years thereafter, EIU projects US GDP growth rate to be greater than China’s. (19)
It is interesting to see whether China
will be different from Japan which went through a similar growth binge from the
fifties to the eighties and now has an ageing population? With its declining population and the distant
villages and small towns getting deserted, some of these infrastructure
projects have become white elephants.
At the height of its industrial boom Japan
built up its steel manufacturing capacity. It had the world’s largest steel
mills; the largest shipbuilding capacity and its trading houses scoured the
world to gain access to raw materials. Korea then emerged as the large steel
manufacturing country and was then taken over by China. Over the next two to
three decades China will start seeing a similar decline.
To avoid that and to keep the factories
humming, China launched its One Belt One Road initiative. It started off well, but
the mistake China made was being too ambitious. Most of the funding came in the
form of loans, rather than grants, from the Chinese government owned financial institutions.
According to the western media its financing terms were opaque and interest
rates were higher than what these countries would have paid if they borrowed
commercially.
China viewed the projects purely from
their own perspective. It did not look at the ability of these economies to see
whether these projects were viable from the usage point of view and whether
these countries had the financial ability to service the debt. This has created
negative feedback which the western media have exploited. China can press the
restart button and gain goodwill by writing off the debt which it has the
ability to do and scale down the projects.
Pundits on the other hand have been
forecasting the decline of America since the seventies. The benchmarks have
been when , (1) OPEC started to raise oil prices in the early seventies, (2)
America lost the war in South Vietnam, (3) Nixon resigned due to the Watergate
scandal, (4) Carter faced the Iran hostage crisis, (5) the Japanese economy
grew to be the second largest, (6) the terrorists attacked the US in 2001 and when
President Trump got elected.
However, I don’t think there is any
country which can claim to have taken America’s position as the dominant power.
According to the EIU, China will likely overtake America in terms of total
nominal GDP in 2032, but because of its large population its GDP per capita
will be one sixth of the United States even after 50 years.
“I think it’s very unlikely that China will get to the U.S. levels of GDP per capita — that’s our measure of wealth — for at least the next 50 years if ever,” Simon Baptist, global chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia’. (20)
Also, from the military point of view,
while China might be able to build up its arsenal of weapons, will it be able
to run the risk of a major war where the US is likely to intervene?
So, not just from the economic, but from a
military, scientific medical, technology and soft power point of view, America
will continue to dominate the world. The US dollar will
continue to be the primary currency for trade and as a reserve currency.
Finally in closing, is there any other country which will be able to overtake America?
In my opinion the only country, if it chooses to do so will be Canada. It could be a kinder, gentler version of America. It has the land mass; its immigration policies are sensible and could be accelerated. It doesn’t have America’s history and baggage. It has some excellent schools but which will need to be expanded. With American tightening its immigration rules, a larger number of the students and educated immigrants are now opting for Canada. The twentieth second century could be Canada’s if it wants it.
References
1. Source:https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/
2.
Source: https://statisticstimes.com/demographics/china-vs-us-population.php
3.
Source: Data Source: World Bank
Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/foreign-direct-investmen
4.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_technology_companies_by_revenue
5.
Source:https://www.statista.com/statistics/263264/top-companies-in-the-world-by-market-capitalization/
6.
Source: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ228175.pdf
7.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_China
8.
Source:
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210521085934537
9. Source:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Defense-Education-Act
10. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA (a) https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/how-a-secretive-pentagon-agency-seeded-the-ground-for-a-rapid-coronavirus-cure/2020/07/30/ad1853c4-c778-11ea-a9d3-74640f25b953_story.html?outputType=amp
11.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country
12. Source:https://www.jri.co.jp/english/periodical/rim/1999/RIMe199904threereforms/
13.
Source: https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/infrastructure-sector-in-china
14. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal
15.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority
16. Source: https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/silk-road
17.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute
18.
18.Source:
https://blog.artsper.com/en/a-closer-look/influence-of-japanese-art-on-western-artists/
19.
Source:
EIU
Database (accessed on June 24, 2019). https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL33534.html
