China is weaker than it looks:
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 after 69 years of tyranny and aggression. On October 1, the People’s Republic of China will officially turn 70. The brutal regime of Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping has made China the world’s longest surviving Communist country, and unlike the Kremlin of old, Beijing seems stronger than ever.
The contrast between China today and the Soviet Union at its death could hardly be more stark. In the early 1990s, Russia’s military was swiftly losing ground to American investment and innovation, forcing a global retreat of influence and power. Today, the People’s Liberation Army is quickly closing the gap with the U.S. armed forces and is projecting its newfound power from the Arctic to Africa to Australasia.
Communist China is also sprinting economically. It overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in 2011, and its GDP has nearly tripled since then. Many forecasters say it’s a matter of when, not if, China overtakes the U.S. By comparison, the Soviet Union struggled to keep its economy even half as large as America’s.
Finally, China is markedly more oppressive than the Soviet Union at a similar age.
But that facade doesn't tell the story. China is much more reliant on the US-dominated trade world than the USSR ever was.
Let's check the economic record from 1960 to 2018 (the Russia figures go back to 1988 when it was still the USSR):
By world bank statistics, in the 1990-1991 period, the USSR had a per capita GDP of about $3,500. America had a figure of about $24,000. So the USSR's figure was 14.6% of America's.
Purchasing power parity didn't save the USSR from that stark imbalance. So why inflate China's GDP to artificially make it look weightier in world impact?
In 2018, China had a figure of $9,770 versus America's $62,641. That makes China's figure 15.6% of America's.
That doesn't sound like China is clearly more powerful than the USSR and so unlikely to face a similar economic collapse.
And it certainly doesn't sound as if America can't pressure China's trade-dominated economy.
I'm not saying China will collapse. I'm just saying that if it does we shouldn't be too shocked.
UPDATE: The Chinese people do realize that in Xinjiang the Chinese Communist Party is testing out the system for controlling all Chinese, right?
