Always a pleasure to hear these moderate and clear eyed voices from China's governing elites. nothing about the future is certain. everyone can screw up and everyone has the capacity to improve. It's the country that work the hardest to produce, prepare, and reflect that will build a tiny advantage every year and develop a small lead in the long run.
No Chinese should dream of a Chinese empire of the old days as the international environment has complete changed. For example China's monumental lead over the likes of Japan happened in the context of mutual isolation before Tang. The leap was diminished even with new isolation with what they learned. Nowadays, everyone can readily copy everyone else in every domain (as long as you are willing).
But I do think China has many advantages:
1) an incomprehensively large common market
2) an out of this world geography for economic development, being laterally 'the middle.' US geographic advantage is in military only.
3) a meritocratic one party system ensures relatively moderate political views
4) a hybrid state-market economy blend efficiency and fairness, which I think is vital in the future with AI and automation.
5) a balanced culture of individualism (vs Japan) and collective responsibility (vs the US)
6) a well defined and reasonable national objective, that is directly improving Chinese people's lives.
of course things can still go wrong in China but I really like China's set of pros and cons. As long as China stay humble and open to learn from everyone, I can't imagine China lose.
