[whendoyoushrink]

And they were right for 35 of those years. Will they be right or wrong in the next 35?

Wealth is a headwind against bad policy. Rich nations can survive many, many bad policies simply because they are rich. The policies it takes to get rich, stay rich, and continue to grow into the future all vary, and the transition is difficult to manage.

I think the relevant question is: are China's current policies pushing the country in the right direction? I don't see how they are.

Jack Ma shows how dangerous it is to be truly successful, so the next generation will at best be more conservative in what they pursue, and at worst won't even try. Given Western money won't be investing any more - the ability to realise capital gains is growing more difficult - and the CCP steals the wealth of potential investors, not being able to pursue big bests is probably inevitable anyway.

China has AWFUL demographics that are getting worse - their population is projected to be 650M by 2100 - and worse it is aging fast, with > 50% post retirement age in the next decade to 3.

On top of that, the CCP has re-emerged as the only force in China. CCP officials see stealing the wealth of other's as their right - a twist on the old joke to "the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's fortunes to steal".

Minimal foreign investment, killing internal investment by stealing the wealth of anyone rich, rising wages, awful demographics and a polity determined to remain isolationist (with few to any friends) and knock down the high achievers sounds like a recipe for imminent (in the decades sense) collapse to me. Not to levels of Sub-Saharan Africa, but even just with their population decline, China's GDP is going to fall in absolute terms, even if their GDP PPP per capita can be improved.

The scary thing is a Nuclear China in decline is likely to become increasingly erratic. Hopefully, the war in Ukraine gave China some pause, but having gone from starvation to world's largest economy in a generation, I'm not sure China is equipped for stagnation, let alone decline. I feel bad rooting for a likely vicious and brutal CCP internal crackdown over invasions of their neighbours, but that seems to me the lesser of two possible evils.

[vehementi]

Well depends on what terminal decline means. GP added the caveat of regime change. You can't be right for X years and then wrong thereafter, that just meant you were incorrect that there was terminal decline.

[hakfoo]

> Jack Ma shows how dangerous it is to be truly successful,

There's a conceptual gap that can and should be opened up. "Successful", even "fantastically successful" doesn't mean that you get to start throwing your weight around the state and social order.

It's fundamentally about being bound by the same rules and expectations as everyone else. He shouldn't be able to use his wealth and connections to try to steer the course of the state, or buy his way out of a situation he doesn't like. That sounds pretty damn wholesome and egalitarian to me.

Personally, I have a fair bit of faith in their government, because they have the economic and political levers to rapidly pivot to where the Next Big Thing is. Look at their dominance in solar manufacturing. You can argue it's low value, not innovative, whatever, but they certainly found a way to take over a significant industry that has global impact. Could the West even supply their demand without China's current market share?

I have to wonder if being a single-party state also helps keep their political discourse sane. There's no need to pander to an extremist base to make a candidacy viable, and there's the chance to say what needs to be said without risk of electoral backlash.