Empire Without Illusion: China, Russia, and the United States in the Age of Power

Imperialism is often treated as a relic of history, a stain belonging to fallen empires and distant centuries. Yet power has not outgrown its appetite for expansion. It has only refined its methods. In the modern world, empire no longer always marches behind flags and armies. It moves through markets, institutions, narratives, and systems of dependence. When judged by this broader and more honest standard, it becomes clear that China, Russia, and the United States all exercise imperial power. The critical question is not whether they are imperial, but how they are imperial, and what restraints, if any, govern their reach.

Rethinking Imperialism

Classical imperialism was defined by conquest and annexation. Modern imperialism is defined by control without ownership. A state acts imperially when it seeks to shape the political, economic, or security decisions of other nations primarily for its own strategic advantage, regardless of formal sovereignty. By this definition, empire is not an exception in world politics. It is a recurring condition wherever power accumulates faster than accountability.

What distinguishes contemporary empires is not their innocence, but their method and justification.

China: Civilizational and Economic Empire

China’s imperial logic is rooted in civilizational hierarchy rather than ideological conversion. It does not seek to remake the world in its image. It seeks recognition of its primacy and deference to its interests.

Through territorial pressure in nearby regions, economic leverage via large-scale infrastructure lending, and control over critical supply chains, China exercises influence that binds weaker states into asymmetric relationships. Sovereignty is formally respected, but materially constrained. Dissent is not prohibited, but punished through economic isolation or diplomatic pressure.

This is not colonial empire in the European sense. It is neo-tributary imperialism, where access to markets and development is exchanged for silence, alignment, or submission. China’s power expands not through persuasion, but through dependency.

Russia: Territorial and Revanchist Empire

Russia’s imperialism is the most familiar and the least subtle. It is grounded in land, borders, and historical grievance. Where China leverages markets, Russia deploys force.

Russia views its near abroad not as fully sovereign states, but as territories temporarily detached from a rightful sphere of influence. Military intervention, annexation, and coercion are justified through appeals to history, ethnicity, and security necessity. This is empire as restoration, animated by loss rather than ambition alone.

In Russia’s case, imperialism is not disguised as partnership or progress. It is asserted openly, defended militarily, and sustained through repression. It resembles nineteenth-century empire operating with modern weaponry and information control.

The United States: Institutional and Ideological Empire

American imperialism operates differently. The United States rarely seeks territory. Instead, it builds and dominates systems: financial institutions, security alliances, trade regimes, and cultural networks that shape the behavior of other states.

Military power remains central, but it is embedded within a broader architecture of influence. Access to global markets, international legitimacy, and security guarantees often comes with expectations of political alignment. American power is frequently framed as benevolent, necessary, or universal in moral scope.

This is liberal-hegemonic imperialism. It rules less by command than by standards. It seeks not submission, but compliance with a rules-based order it largely designed and enforces.

What makes American imperialism distinct is not that it is harmless, but that it is internally contested. Its actions are debated, criticized, litigated, and sometimes reversed. That does not negate its imperial reach, but it does impose friction.

The Meaningful Differences

All three powers extend influence beyond their borders. Yet the differences matter.

China’s empire is pragmatic and patient. Russia’s is coercive and revanchist. The United States’ is institutional and moralized. China demands deference. Russia demands submission. The United States demands alignment.

Most importantly, the United States remains structurally open to correction. Its imperial impulses face resistance from courts, media, elections, and civil society. These restraints are imperfect and weakening, but they exist. In China and Russia, imperial power flows outward without meaningful internal challenge.

Empire and Accountability

The decisive question is not whether empire exists, but whether it is restrained.

History teaches that unrestrained empire eventually corrodes both the dominated and the dominator. Power without accountability becomes predatory. Influence without limits becomes exploitation. What separates tolerable hegemony from destructive empire is not intention, but restraint.

In this sense, the global order is not divided between imperial and non-imperial states. It is divided between powers that still argue about the limits of their reach and those that no longer do.

Conclusion

China, Russia, and the United States are all imperial in behavior, though not in identical form. To deny this is to misunderstand modern power. Yet to claim they are all the same is equally false. Methods, justifications, and restraints matter.

Empire is not the greatest danger of the modern world. Unexamined empire is.

A power willing to question itself may yet reform. A power that silences such questions has already chosen its future.