"Chimerica" compactly encapsulates the
symbiotic relationship between the two greatest
world powers at the
dawn of the
21st Century --
China and
America (as in, the
United States of). The word is
fortuitously similar to
chimera, a mythic creature formed from the melding together of parts from other creatures: part
lion, part
snake, and part
goat. But
this chimera may be instead part
eagle and part
dragon (or maybe also still part lion, since lions are also a
theme used in Chinese
culture).
The term traces to another
pairing, that of
historian Niall Ferguson and
economist Moritz Schularick, who together argue that China is in the driver's seat in this interdependent situation, as it would not be as badly harmed by
disengagement as the US would. In more recent days these authors have predicted the
dissolution of the relationship due to the economic
depression from which the countries are emerging in different and incompatible ways.
Acknowledgment must be paid, as a note, to the 1988 text-based computer strategy game,
Hidden Agenda. There, "Chimerica" is presented as an actual mix of chimera and America, denoting a fictitious
nation covering parts of
Latin America, said to have the "
body of
El Salvador,
neck of
Nicaragua,
claws of
Cuba,
head of
Haiti."