Over the last half century, the key strategic resource for the core economies have been the ability to produce productive equipment ... machine tools, heavy turbines, etc. ... and there's nothing on that front that the US producers that the Chinese cannot get from Japan.

Indeed, if thinking of China as a great power, it really has to be the Sino-Japanese system that is the great power.

There may be selected strategic raw materials, but of course between Australasia and Africa, it does not seem likely that the US has any kind of actual lock on strategic raw materials.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.