You are mistaken. If the US decided to give up its role, there would be a void, a void that anyone who filled it would gain soft power from. China would be very interested in taking the place of the US in securing global trade routes, because doing so would not only provide soft power but also signal that China had replaced the US as the world’s hegemon.
China (at least its current incarnation with Xi) doesn't care about soft power and thinks the only reason anyone else tries it is they're overly sentimental losers. That's why they have that wolf warrior diplomacy program where they just had diplomats insult everyone.
We already have piracy coming back with the Houthis; China didn't join the alliance with other countries, defended their own ships and ignored everyone else.
> China (at least its current incarnation with Xi) doesn't care about soft power
That’s just wrong. Xi has explicitly ordered cadres to "tell China’s story well"[1] and build "discourse power" that’s textbook soft-power ambition. Surveys show it’s working, China jumped to #3 in 2024 and #2 in 2025 on brand finance’s global soft power index.
> We already have piracy coming back with the Houthis; China didn't join the alliance with other countries, defended their own ships and ignored everyone else.
This is NOT piracy. Under UNCLOS Art. 101, piracy requires acts "for private ends" on the high seas. The Houthi campaign is openly political/armed-conflict behavior, so it doesn’t meet the piracy definition (even though it looks like it to laypeople).
