The Global Hegemony Struggle: The Geo-Economic Rivalry between U.S. Consumerism and China’s Productive State (2001–2025)

This study examines the geoeconomic hegemonic struggle between the United States and the People's Republic of China during the period 2001-2025 within an analytical framework. The main research question addresses how the competition between American hegemony based on consumerist capitalism and the Chinese geoeconomic structure adopting a productivist state model transforms the global balance of power. The hypothesis posits that China's production-oriented growth strategy structurally challenges the sustainability of the American consumerist model and accelerates the transition to a multipolar world order. Employing hegemonic stability theory, power transition theory, and geoeconomic theory as theoretical frameworks, this research utilizes a qualitative methodology. The data collection process is based on systematic examination of economic reports from international organizations, official state documents, academic literature, and policy texts. The data obtained were evaluated through content analysis and interpreted within a comparative framework. Findings reveal that China's increasing share in global manufacturing production relatively weakens American economic supremacy. Particularly in the context of infrastructure investments, technology transfer, and expansion of trade networks, China's geoeconomic strategy leads to a significant transformation in the traditional Western-centered international system. In the discussion section, the structural differences between consumerist and productivist models are evaluated by comparing them with other studies in the literature, and the contemporary meaning of the hegemony concept is re-examined. In conclusion, it has been determined that global political economy is shifting from traditional actor-centered approaches toward analysis of structural competition; the sustainability of American consumption patterns is being questioned; and the Chinese production model possesses the capacity to construct a new geoeconomic order on a global scale. The research makes a theoretical contribution to efforts in developing new geoeconomic-focused theories in the discipline of international relations and provides strategic foresight to policymakers.