Chinese threat of > 50%

The biggest potential of BTC in the near term is for banks to view it
as good as gold, and hold it accordingly, especially as the dollar
collapses from the U.S. not having a manufacturing base (7% of the
population) and the world no longer needing to finance the US.
military by cycling their trade surpluses into U.S. treasuries that
make the deficit spending possible that makes the military possible.
The dollar house of cards should fall fast because the world "needs"
the last remaining support column, U.S. consumption, less and less.

But BTC is not tenable as a replacement currency if the Chinese
government can tell >50% of miners what to do, or produce enough
mining equipment to get that >50% in a dozen months. They are so
aggressive with solar (with its collapsing costs), no one will be able
to compete with them in electricity. But their ability to be cheapest
mining community has given the Chinese government a zero-cost
infrastructure they can take over at any time. If BTC stands in the
way of the the RMB copying the dollar's play book, they will have no
qualms in using the mining power at a loss to quash it. Only by
squashing it will they be able to dictate trade terms to the rest of
the world in the same way the U.S. military & dollar enabled the U.S.
since even before 1971. Their ability to control BTC's POW should reduce European
and U.S. banks' desire to rely on BTC as if it were gold.

BTW, I do not mean to downplay BTC's importance by equating it with gold: when the
dollar-led fiat bubble collapses, gold-like stuff should shine as it has at the beginning of any monetary collapse and wars.

The Chinese control the BTC mining equipment, and has the cheapest electricity. The shift
to fees does not change anything: China will still have the
POW that can dictate what the ledger says, choosing
txns more easily than the U.S. has been able to place embargos on countries that get
out of line. They need to only act like the U.S. for it to be a disaster for most of us.

The Chinese government may have little interest in BTC,
even if leaving it alone would be their best option. (It would be
because they have the manufacturing base and everyone rising together
would allow them to rise higher than the U.S. IMF/world bank play book allowed us).
But no government or people seems to have been that enlightened when
they have had such a large edge. It seems like they may follow the U.S.
and U.K empires' and guide the world towards the RMB, first
by being the world's greatest producer with the greatest trade
surplus, and then by letting the manufacturing base slip away via the drug
of currency "surplus" and trade deficit.

BTC can't go against the desires of China to an extent that's greater
than China's unwillingness to dictate terms to its mining community.  That
does not seem like a very great barrier. So BTC playing a supporting role to RMB dominance is a real possibility thanks to "might is right" POW mining. 

Bitcoiner's are all about capitalistic free markets and no welfare state, and yet they have a "kumbaya" feeling for a worldwide community-without-government consensus to define a world currency. But at its core is POW which is not a popular vote, or a vote for what's best for the world. It's based on power. If that power gets concentrated, then evolutionary rules replace consensus.  If China remains strong enough to maintain > 50% and if its government acts in a way to coordinate its miners, the rest of the world will be proven evolutionarily weak. It will be an example of really free market weeding out the weak, thanks to the absence of a world government that might have protected the weak via laws and a power outside of the blockchain.

Can BTC be made to prevent China from dictating the POW results?
There is such acrimony shown to forked clones that have so little
community and dev support, it would seem no one believes a
state-sponsored clone, backed by a tweet army, would have much trouble
in replacing BTC. China is the only one who could do this in addition
to POWing the real BTC into worthlessness.