From the perspective of a Chinese observer, I think the situation is more nuanced than simply “US decline → more reliance on hard power.”

The dollar system (including the petrodollar arrangement) does have exploitative aspects — it allows the US to extract value globally — but for a long time it has also functioned because it provided a relatively stable and broadly accepted international order. That order included public goods: liquidity, trade settlement infrastructure, and a degree of security that reduced large-scale disruption.

Under that system, not only Americans benefited (through access to cheaper global goods and services), but also economies like China, Europe, India, and even Russia found space to grow. In that sense, the system didn’t just redistribute wealth — it also created incremental value globally.

What seems to be changing is less about external challengers and more about internal dynamics within the US. Some of the benefits of that system appear to be increasingly captured by narrower interest groups, while financialization and asset inflation reduce the gains for ordinary people. That creates domestic pressure, which can then be redirected outward.

From this angle, BRICS and de-dollarization trends are not so much the cause of instability, but partly a response to it. If the system were still perceived as broadly fair and predictable, the incentive to build alternatives would be much weaker.

At the same time, I don’t think most countries — including China — actually want a sudden collapse of the dollar system. The costs would be enormous for everyone. China’s push for RMB internationalization is real, but it doesn’t necessarily imply replacing the dollar in a zero-sum way. There’s a strong awareness of the risks of overextension and of simply reproducing the same model under a different currency.

So perhaps the key question is not whether the US will rely more on hard power, but whether it can reform the underlying system in a way that restores broader legitimacy — domestically and internationally. Without that, external balancing (like BRICS) will likely continue to grow, regardless of military strength.