[diego_moita]

I want to think like that but would like to understand the details before believing in it.

Recently, I read "China's Future" by David Shambaugh. He argues along the same lines as you. He claims that the development driven by exports and government investing is exhausted because of growing protectionism, competition from nearby countries and growing inefficiency on government companies.

Meanwhile the country still has a lot inequality to solve, between west and the east coast and rural and urban population. It is also getting old very fast and doesn't have a good welfare network.

Therefore, the only path ahead is development of internal market. He claims that for this the country needs transparency, the rule of law and diversity of ideas but I don't think he made it very clear to me, however. Truth is that autocratic countries (e.g: Russia, Turkey, Cuba, Belarus, etc) are very, very bad at creating diversified economies. Let's see if China finds a way to do it.

[germainelol]

Really agree on the inequality point, especially in the West around Xinjiang. Some of the stories my friends have told me about growing up there were ridiculous.

I think after you travel around China a bit, it's really difficult to see it as a first world country that's at the forefront of innovation.

You can go to a city like Shenzhen and see all these cool products being launched and huge skyscrapers, which is impressive given 30 years ago it was just a fishing village overshadowed by Hong Kong. But then you travel around and see that a lot of China consists of huge cities with shoddy living conditions and very limited opportunities.