There is no uniform definition of superpower, but most writers’ who try to define it include a growing, technologically advanced economy, a military as powerful as any other, and a unified and thriving populace. Can China achieve each of these in the 21st century?
Minxin Pei, a China specialist at Claremont McKenna College in California and a director at the Carnegie Endowment, makes the bearish case in an article for The Diplomat. He points to a large portion of the population living in poor villages, and further predicts that “the likelihood that China’s growth will slow down significantly in the next two decades is real and even substantial.” He points primarily to China as an ageing society, due to its one child per family policy.
China’s bulls point to an economy that has surged 90-fold since 1978, recently passed Japan’s to become the second largest in the world, and was recently projected to surpass the U.S. economy by 2020.