There is always a false feeling that the decline of the British Empire and the hegemony of US imperialism are a smooth concession of power. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoThe British Empire sincerely handed over the authority of world power to the United States, and the United States took the place of Britain to rule the world. It seems that the two families are a peaceful handover, and they are harmonious.

But is this really the case in history? Was the Anglo-American special relationship really that rosy? Anyway, Li Xiaofeng doesn't believe in this kind of nonsense, who doesn't like power, who can be the boss, who is willing to be willing to be the second child? Especially for those who have been bosses for many years, is it really that easy for them to obediently hand over their authority?

Some comrades may want to say that the reason why the British are so "willingly" the second is that the rise of the Soviet Union is that the Red Empire has put too much pressure on Britain and forced Britain to make concessions to the United States.

Truth be told, that's. Indeed, after the end of World War II, there was indeed a lot of common discourse between Britain and the United States due to the need to jointly confront the Soviet bloc bloc and communist ideology. Moreover, Britain did suffer heavy losses and its empire was crumbling, and it did need the help of the United States in order to prevent the resurgence of Germany and the challenge of the Soviet Union.

However, although the special relationship between Britain and the United States has the above-mentioned practical basis, the so-called hegemonic "peace and concession" is only a decorative term, and to put it bluntly, it is the Spring and Autumn period brushwork. Although there was no hot war between Britain and Britain at the critical moment of the rise and fall of the old and new hegemons, it did not mean that the two countries did not engage in an arduous war to maintain or gain hegemony.

In other words, the British were by no means willing to hand over power to the United States, and if the British were so eloquent, the Napoleonic era and World War I and World War II would not have happened at all - anyway, Britain did not care about hegemony, and it would be over if it was handed over.

But the question is, are the British so generous? The reason why the anti-French alliance was formed again and again was because the British were paying out of their pockets, and almost every country that joined the anti-French alliance could get economic aid from Britain. Without the British to pay, the Russians sent troops, and the anti-French coalition Nima is a joke.

Looking at World War I, Britain committed an unprecedented 6.7 million troops throughout the war. The Dominions and colonies of the British Empire also mobilized to contribute a large number of troops and laborers to the war, and more than 55,000 Gurkha soldiers joined the British Indian army in Nepal alone. Among the major colonies, India contributed 1.4 million troops, Canada 630,000, Australia 415,000, South Africa 150,000, and New Zealand 130,000.

If the authority of the British over the hegemony could be ceded at will, did he eat up the full mobilization of the colonies?

Not only was the mobilization magnitude, but the price paid by Britain for the First World War was also heavy: before the war, the United States owed Britain more than 400 million pounds in debt, and after the war, Britain owed the United States 850 million pounds. Britain's gold reserves fell by £42 million as a result of the First World War, and a quarter of its overseas assets were forced to sell during the war because of financial constraints.

Don't care about the hegemon, Britain took the wrong medicine to fight this war?

Even the situation in Russia after the First World War shows how enthusiastic Britain was about hegemony, when Britain and France secretly signed a secret treaty to divide Tsarist Russia in 1918, and in order to completely remove the threat to the hegemony of the British Empire - Russia, the British invested 46 million pounds in order to interfere in the Russian Revolution from 1918 to 1920 alone.

Fortunately, it was the economic collapse of the great powers after the war, so that Britain, which had a huge burden, could not afford to continue to invest huge amounts of intervention costs, so it had to stop, and only then did it change from armed encirclement and suppression to peaceful evolution. Even Lenin lamented: "Despite the encirclement of capitalism, we have basically been able to survive internationally." ”

The above general statement can only explain one problem, that is, Britain is absolutely unwilling to cede hegemony, and in this case, there is no peaceful concession in the transfer of power between Britain and the United States, but a power struggle between Chiguoguo. Britain lost the power struggle and had to bow to the United States. As for the so-called Anglo-American special relationship, it is nothing more than the British using it to paralyze themselves and the Americans to give the British a step down.

So when exactly did the British lose this battle for supremacy? In Li Xiaofeng's view, the British did not lose hegemony in 1947, nor in 1945, but pushed forward twenty years in 1925.

1925 was a pivotal year, and although it was a year that did not bring anything earth-shattering, it was a watershed year. From the beginning of this year to the end of the First World War, it was actually a precious period of adjustment left to Britain by the god of history. At this stage, although Britain was badly damaged by the war, it could do something for up to five years. If we seize these five years to carry out reforms, it is not impossible for Britain to continue its hegemony.

It is a pity that from 1920 to 1925 the British did nothing, and then from 1925 to 1935 they were still dozing, and these fifteen years were not just time, but the last life of the British Empire.

There was no change between England in those ten years and England in the first hundred years, and the old gentleman clinged to the traditions of the past, becoming more and more out of place until he was eliminated. In those years, Britain stubbornly adhered to the imperialist line and the dogma of free trade, and its foreign policy remained the principle of maintaining the balance of power on the continent that has not been shaken for thousands of years.

Truth be told, none of this is out of place. Too much has been said about the imperialist policy of not criticizing anything, and the foreign policy of maintaining the balance of power on the mainland is not nonsense. Now let's talk about the economic internals.

Rigid thinking and blind freedom are the dead end of the British economy. As a result of the great achievements of the first industrial revolution, the British elite was always in a state of self-satisfaction. The liberal economic theories put forward by British economists such as Adam Smith and Ricardo are almost equivalent to the bible of economics in Britain, and must not be violated or blasphemed.

At its core, the so-called liberal economic theory emphasizes limiting government behavior, reducing tax burdens, and free trade. In the 19th century, this theory was in line with objective reality, so we can see that Britain has achieved unprecedented achievements. However, the realization of this theory is also objectively based on the premise that Britain was the first to complete the first industrial revolution and has a technological advantage over other countries.

However, by the end of the 19th century, this technological advantage had been lost, and Britain's industrial capacity and technological renewal speed had been surpassed by the United States and Germany. From the mid-to-late 19th century to 1900, the U.S. tariff rate was roughly between 40 and 50 percent, and this policy effectively protected the domestic industry in the United States, allowing it to obtain a basic environment that surpassed that of the British industry. For example, in 1869, foreign imports accounted for about 14% of the market share in the United States, but by 1909, that figure was only 6%.

Looking at Britain on the other hand, imports increased about sevenfold in the decade after 1880, and Britain went from being an exporter to the largest market for foreign goods. Becoming a market for the sale of goods is basically equivalent to slaughtering, which is in a completely passive position in the international economic system, and it stands to reason that with the intelligence of the British elite, they will not fail to see that this is a very fatal thing, but the reality is that the British are almost blind to this.

Why? The reason is that the sun never sets, the British Empire, which experienced the Napoleonic era and the baptism of World War I, obtained the world's most extensive territory, and as of 1931, Britain obtained a total of 59 colonies, with a total area of 34.8 million square kilometers and a total population of 463 million.

What does this mean? This means that the UK has a vast source of cheap primary raw materials and an equally cheap labour resource. There may be comrades who are going to say it again, isn't that a good thing? Who doesn't want a big family?

Yes, there are benefits, but there are also hidden concerns. Because resources are abundant and labor is cheap. For the bosses of the United Kingdom, they can make a lot of money by engaging in the simplest agricultural planting and mining, since it is so easy to make money, why bother to engage in complex industries, why go to the technology tree?

In fact, similar examples are not without in later generations, such as oil bosses in the Middle East, Venezuela and polar bears in Latin America have all fallen into this pit. As far as these companies are concerned, there are large oil resources, and it is easy and convenient to sell crude oil, but they are tired and panicked when they engage in industrial investment.

So we can see that Russia has been eating the old roots of the Soviet Union, and ****** has only gained the love of the people by making a little money by selling oil. But once the demand for oil is not strong, even local tyrants like Saudi Arabia have to tighten their belts to get by.

As the saying goes, people who have no foresight must have near-term worries, and life is too superior is also harmful. Once people are accustomed to laziness, it may be difficult to be diligent.

The same is true for the British, the huge colonies have given the British countless opportunities, and it is too easy for them to forget the hardships of their ancestors in accumulating this little family business, and they have all become losers. One by one, they all take the road of easy money, do not honestly climb the science and technology tree to engage in technological innovation, and turn to sell resources or more simply play the financial trick of turning money into money, and the result is that the advantage is getting smaller and smaller, until they are caught up by latecomers.

As mentioned earlier, Britain still had a chance after the First World War, and with the power of British financial capital at that time, it was able to devote a large part of the funds to technological innovation, and at the same time to carry out real development of the colonies (instead of simply engaging in plantation or simply plundering resources).

But history tells us that the British did not do this, the financial predators did not pull out a dime a dozen, and the political elite blindly believed in the experience of their predecessors, turning free trade into a dogma that could not be overtaken. As a result, the loss of the basic industrial capacity for trade and the lack of appearance of an increase in trade volume, and the long-term disadvantage of industrial capacity has led to the gradual occupation of the trade market by emerging countries. After the occupation of the domestic market by foreign goods, especially German goods, it caused discontent and panic in the country, and the economic problems were transferred to the political and diplomatic spheres, which became the main reason for the later detonation of the Anglo-German contradictions.

Some comrades may say again, the United States was the No1 of industry back then, and German goods could make Britain panic and cause a political crisis, so why didn't American goods exist? Doesn't this just prove that the Anglo-American relationship is a special relationship?

This is not the case, because the United States has stronger domestic purchasing power, and the domestic market can digest most of the industrial products, so the impact of American goods on the British market is very small. Germany is different, the domestic population is limited and the market is small, and the foreign colonies were completely lost because of the defeat of World War I, so they can only go to the British market to work hard, so Germany has a greater impact on Britain.

In fact, the British also died on their own, and if he could really develop the colonies well, instead of just treating them as objects of plunder and sheep shearing, the purchasing power of their huge colonies would be quite astonishing. It is a pity that Britain does not care about the life or death of its colonies at all, and then its own domestic industry does not do technological upgrades, resulting in a huge colony with little purchasing power. Then the British opened all their markets generously, and were squeezed by more powerful opponents, can they not collapse?

Let's put it this way, it was not the new challenge forces led by Germany and the United States that brought down the British Empire, but the British elites. These people were too eager for quick success, which led to the outbreak of contradictions in the future. Just imagine, once the day comes, the British have neither financial superiority, nor technological superiority, and the military stick that finally relied on hegemony will not be powerful, will he still be able to barely survive by sucking the blood of the colonies as before?

Some comrades may complain, you chirped so much, does it have a dime to do with the previous chapter? Oh, it really matters, as I said before, Attlee was naïve to think that as long as he had cash flow and didn't make too many changes, he could continue to maintain the old ways of the British Empire, and this is the fundamental reason why he actively stabbed Japan. But we can see from the above chirps that the British Empire did not collapse at all because of lack of money, and a temporary injection of funds is like a blood transfusion, which can indeed make it survive for a few days, but the problem is that the fundamental problem is not solved, what should be done when these extorted funds are squandered?

Could it be that you can still knock on the bamboo pole of the United States once, twice, or three times? Now there is an excuse for Japan's war reparations, but what about next time? I'm afraid that the next time the British Empire will either sell itself to pay off its debts or cede land to pay its debts. But the chassis left by the ancestors is limited, can it withstand such a toss again and again? What's more, the United States is not a big fool, this time it is impossible to take you Britain, but after this time, he has the means to make you comply, such as making a fuss about the colonies on which the British Empire depends, and taking a salary from the bottom of the kettle...... (To be continued.) )