KISHORE MAHBUBANI urges “Western minds†to seek the key to why once-robust Western societies now under-perform, not in China but at home (read our online debate and Mr Mahbubani’s piece here). But liberal democracy’s current ills have opened an unprecedented opportunity to an increasingly confident and authoritarian China, which has seized its chance. As the liberal order staggers, China is building an extensive network of influence that will inhibit its recovery.
Globalisation helped China go from poverty to the world’s second-largest economy. The question now is, what next? Thus far, China has followed a familiar script, albeit on a huge scale: urbanisation of rural populations, and investment in infrastructure, low-cost manufacturing and exports. At an equivalent moment, Asia’s smaller tigers—notably South Korea and Taiwan—moved up the value chain and made a political transition away from authoritarianism and becoming more democratic, with civil and legal institutions that contributed to stability and enabled them to be responsible players in a global system.
https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/06/15/the-chinese-communist-partys-fear-of-its-people-spells-trouble---------------
Cutting through the flowers and rainbow musings of the left-wing Economist, what it really means is that China is a superpower that is the worst of all worlds - economic dominance combined with old-time authortarianism.
It also means the US is very much on the decline and in the backseat position now.
