S8 Ep183: PREVIEW — Charles Ortel — Western Elites "Bought Off" to Promote China's Global Leadership. Ortel argues that Western academic and publishing elites have been systematically "bought off" through financial incentives and institutional compromises to promot

PREVIEW — Charles Ortel — Western Elites "Bought Off" to Promote China's Global Leadership. Ortel argues that Western academic and publishing elites have been systematically "bought off" through financial incentives and institutional compromises to promote China as the inevitable global leader and future geopolitical hegemon, despite the absence of credible and reliable economic data supporting this characterization. Ortel contends that Western institutions have strategically conceded leadership legitimacy to Beijing based on ideological conviction rather than empirical economic evidence. Ortel emphasizes that China has systematically demonstrated institutional incapacity to fulfill the complex requirements of global leadership, including transparent governance, rule-of-law institutional frameworks, and multi-stakeholder consensus-building necessary for sustainable hegemonic authority.