China will NOT become the world’s greatest economic power, because their economic model is not aligned with reality, as the Christian Worldview is.
 
The 18th and 19th centuries could be considered the centuries of the United Kingdom.  And, the 20th was the century of the United States.  The Chinese are claiming that the 21st century is the Chinese Century, both geo-economically and geopolitically.  But, it’s not going to happen.  China will NOT become the world’s greatest superpower.  Not in 2023, nor 2030, nor 2050.  Why not?  Their economic model is not aligned with reality, or as I like to call it, the Christian Worldview.
 
The Yin Yang
First, just a LITTLE philosophy, and it’s a little because I’m not much of a philosopher.  The Chinese believe that good and bad are intermingled, as shown in the yin-yang.  As it turns, good and bad move together.  Their belief is that the US was on top for a century, and now as the yin-yang turns, they will be on the top.  They believe they have less control over their fate than Christians do.  And, they believe good and evil are intermingled, while we believe that good and evil are SEPARATE entities, and that evil is a parasite on good.  
Now, back to economics.  The Japanese Center for Economic Research issues a periodic assessment of trends in Asia-Pacific economies, and as recently as 2021 it forecast that China’s nominal GDP would exceed America’s by 2029. No longer. The Japanese think tank now estimates that the U.S. will maintain a healthy lead over the People’s Republic, with U.S. GDP exceeding $41 trillion in 2035. China’s will be closer to $36 trillion.
 
Move the Labor Force
When I was a PhD student in the early 1990’s, experts were saying that China couldn’t grow because their infrastructure was undeveloped.  They didn’t have the roads, water & sewer, electricity, telecommunications, nor railroads systems.  They overcame those logistical hurdles by moving the labor force from the countryside to the burgeoning Pearl River delta cities of Guanzhou, Shenzen, and Donguan.  That was pretty easy.  Just make stuff near the port, put it in a sea-going container, and it can reach any port in the world in a few days. 
They have experienced what economists call the “catch-up” effect.  It’s kinda like, if you want to be the most improved basketball team in the conference, you start out as the worst.  China started out as an undeveloped economy when they were freed from Communist Socialism starting in about 1978.  They put their foot in the door of free market capitalism, but now under Xi Jinpeng, they are slamming it shut.  Their economy reportedly grew at 9% for about 20 years.  This year it’s down to five percent.  Okay, mostly because of Covid, but that’s concealing the problem of centralized government.   But the Japanese Economic source I cited earlier, thinks China’s growth will be 2% or lower by 2030, because of the authoritarian rule of President Xi and the one-child policy that has shrunk the labor pool.  That 2% growth compares with 3%, which the US has averaged for over a hundred years.  
 
Economic Freedom
Frederick Hayek made the point that freedom is the underlying concept of an effective economic policy.  It’s the first of the Ten Commandments of Biblical Economics that S...