I find this guy very well informed and interesting but I do not see in his argument a strong case for why China cannot become an empire. Sure the British and US control the legacy financial protocols and institutions but that is largely due to them having previously dominated global trade. That has changed and now China dominates global trade and must logically assume a role where it dominates global finance or it must fail to sustain its growing power projection and wealth creation and simply become another vassal state to western imperialism. Or is there another way?