Mainstream explanations for the rise and fall of great powers all suffer from certain limitations. From the perspective of global politics, this study adopts a long historical and comparative case study approach and finds that, in the history of capitalism since the rise of the West, cyclical hegemonic decline has often been triggered by the economy's shift from real to virtual sectors. The structural root of this shift lies in the disembedding of capital power, which eventually leads to the capture of political power.

In the case of the Spanish Empire, the inflow of silver capital led Spain to abandon production and indulge in luxury consumption and successive wars, thus causing its economy to move from real to virtual. Moreover, Spanish political power was insufficient to carry out institutional reforms to eliminate rentier aristocratic oligarchies and local forces, ultimately resulting in the decline of the Spanish Empire.

For the British Empire, the transformation of domestic industrial capital into international financial capital led to the hollowing-out of its economy and the decline of its industry. The shift from industrial capitalism to financial capitalism did not make Britain stronger; on the contrary, it led to its eventual overtaking by the United States.

As for the current global hegemon, the United States, under the trend of economic financialization that began around the 1970s–1980s, the Wall Street financial capital group captured political power, further hollowing out the U.S. economy and creating a serious imbalance between the financial industry and manufacturing. Neoliberalism, in turn, served as an ideology tailor-made for the expansion of financial capital.

From Spain to Britain and then to the United States, every rise of a hegemon has been accompanied by an effective alignment of political power and capital power in developing the real economy. Conversely, every hegemonic decline stems from the disembedding—and ultimately the capture—of political power (which ought to represent public interests) by financial capital power that serves private interests. This triggers an economic shift from real to virtual sectors, leading to the eventual decline of the hegemon's real economy, loss of dominance over the global market, and replacement by emerging powers. The hollowing-out of the economy is not merely the financial expansion phase in the capitalist system's accumulation cycles as defined by Arrighi, marking the advent of ''capitalist autumn''; it also profoundly reflects the rent‑seeking and rentier nature of contemporary financial capitalism.

History serves as a mirror to understand rise and fall. China's rise is rooted in the growth and expansion of its real economy, underpinned by the effective regulation and guidance of capital power by political power. Therefore, China's rise carries profound significance for the reconstruction of the world political and economic order. It signifies the transcendence of the rent‑seeking and rentier logic of financial capitalism by the productive and economic logic of socialism, in an effort to create a better future for human civilization. China has also exhibited a certain trend toward economic financialization in recent years, which warrants vigilance.

The theme of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is to continue vigorously advancing Chinese‑style modernization—rooted in the real economy and centered on high‑quality development. This represents a strategic deployment that grasps the laws of history and seizes the initiative in historical development.