China is at a crossroads like plenty of other countries that hit a similar point in their developmental cycle.
The Eastern Bloc in the 1980s-1990s; Thailand, South Korea, Mexico, and Malaysia in the 1990s-2000s; and Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, and Russia in the 2010s all hit a similar hurdle when low hanging fruit reforms were done, and systemic reforms were needed.
Some, like South Korea and Poland, did those reforms and reshaped their entire economies.
Others like Malaysia, Hungary, and Turkey did some piecemeal reform but never any systemic ones.
And others like Mexico, Russia, and Brazil basically stood still and lagged behind.
China's trajectory for the rest of the 21st century will be decided by the choices policymakers in China will make this decade.
Also, people should NOT feel schadenfreude about the current slowdown of the Chinese economy - similar slowdowns in Russia, Turkey, etc lead to a much more aggressive foreign stance adding fuel to conflicts in the Caucasus, Ukraine, Syria, South Asia, Sahel, and the Maghreb.
This is a very "outside" take on what all these countries are doing.
It's measuring their velocity on a linear path towards integration into a US-dominated global economy with a specific (classically) liberal, individualist, humanist vestigially-Christian culture and then characterizing deviations as mistakes or compromises or fallbacks.
The "inside" reality is that many of these countries and their people are skeptical or hostile towards that economy and culture for legitimate historical or cultural reasons of their own. These are largely countries with accomplished, strong histories in the modern era and they are taking informed, principled bets on a different future than the West is pursuing. They have their own development and continuity objectives that sometimes compete with or are otherwise incompatible with docile integration into the Western hegemony.
I don't even dispute that it all amounts to the same thing on the surface of effects: China is at a crossroads as their chapter of rapid industrialization comes to a close, some countries that do have lagging economies, military conflict and aggressiveness is ripe, etc -- but I think it's worth giving credit to the people of these countries for making their own informed decisions that are different than what we might make, instead of writing them all off as simply mismanaged or whatever.
The Eastern Bloc in the 1980s-1990s; Thailand, South Korea, Mexico, and Malaysia in the 1990s-2000s; and Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, and Russia in the 2010s all hit a similar hurdle when low hanging fruit reforms were done, and systemic reforms were needed.
Some, like South Korea and Poland, did those reforms and reshaped their entire economies.
Others like Malaysia, Hungary, and Turkey did some piecemeal reform but never any systemic ones.
And others like Mexico, Russia, and Brazil basically stood still and lagged behind.
China's trajectory for the rest of the 21st century will be decided by the choices policymakers in China will make this decade.
Also, people should NOT feel schadenfreude about the current slowdown of the Chinese economy - similar slowdowns in Russia, Turkey, etc lead to a much more aggressive foreign stance adding fuel to conflicts in the Caucasus, Ukraine, Syria, South Asia, Sahel, and the Maghreb.