If there's one thing that the US can hope for in the rise of China as a world power is that the massive kleptocracy among the ruling and military class there ("China’s Billionaire People’s Congress Makes Capitol Hill Look Like Paupers") will bring the regime and its Ponzi scheme economy down in flames before they conquer the planet.
Of course, that would have dire geopolitical and economic results, too.
The irony is that there's been a long-time philosophical thought that introduction of capitalism and "free markets" to China would bring, over time, personal liberties and Western-style democracy to the country. Which might have happened, had not the ruling class firmly taken the reins of the economic growth and used it to secure their own autocratic position and plutocratic wealth.
Which, both Enlightenment and Marxist thought would seem to indicate, can only lead to revolution and destruction, probably more along the lines of the French than the American revolution.
Mao is, one suspects, spinning in his grave.
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Chinese corruption and looting on a vast scale: industry, government, and military
Here's a well-cited and pretty scary article describing the vast scale of corruption at the highest levels in China, and the extent to which "the success of 300m Chinese who live in western level pros…
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