There has been ongoing predictions since 1949 by wishful thinkers in the West that China would keel over economically & break up into a bunch of ineffectual vassal states of the USA.
The premise being that communism was doomed to fail while in Marxist states, the Marxist maxim being "that Capitalism within it contains the seeds of its own destruction.
There has been a lot of water under the bridge since 1949 on those fronts:
The Cold War Maoist China (The Great Leap Forward , The Cultural Revolution etc etc Wars The failure of the USSR The emergence of the new China economically (its OK to be rich) The GFC ( US capitalism on a drip) Then Xi and the BRI
While many Western bigots label China as Communist (I guess the lable appeals to the plebs) the fact is that China economically is a mix of State Capitalism & Private Enterprise commanded by the single political CCP.
It is not really Communist just as the US, Aus etc is not purely Capitalist (more Welfare States)
So the big question is: "Is the demise of the USSR a template for the future demise of China"?
IMO no for the following reasons: (a) The USSR was a neo-colonial power that although industrially advanced only trades with its limited colonies....China is different in that it trades globally, and commands over 30% of global manufacturing and trade. (b) XI's academic specialty was the demise of the USSR and he is not likely to let China repeat the USSR's economic and political weaknesses. (c) Xi's BRI is designed to split global trade in two: That which is China friendly and that which is not (BRI membership is the measure of that, IMO; which includes some 'neutrals") This is why we have outlawed BRI membership for Aus..... ....it has already been chosen for us to be in the US half... (d) China is fundamentally different to the USSR economically in that State Capitalism makes up less than 50% of its economy...the bigger half being private enterprise albeit tightly regulated by the central CCP. (e) A growing %age of private property including farm land & housing where the original Maoist regime mirrored the USSR in this respect.
So, in summary, China is a different "animal" to that of the former USSR and to expect the same of China is foolhardy to say the least IMO.
PS: If China wanted to fix its Private Enterprise construction companies then it would simply do a US 2008.....just bail them out with a lazy $1 Trillion USD but of course Marxists believe that Capitalism contains within it the seeds of its own destruction , so why should China bail them out...eh?
