10-20 years ago I can remember the analyses arguing China can only continue to grow with liberalization, even outright requirements for democracy. Perhaps these pronouncements are still being made.
I've come to believe that what's really useful to people isn't "democracy" or "freedom" rather rather stability. That means political and economic stability.
One thing I find fascinating is China's ghost cities. I remember reading some report that said housing for 64M+ was sitting vacant, largely unaffordable to locals. Now one can argue that such work is stimulating the economy by providing employment.
But here's another view. As much as we might (rightly) deride Trump, there are the (very) occasional nuggets of truth. Some might say even racist clocks are right twice a day [1]. Whatever the case, the specific issue is infrastructure.
Infrastructure in the US is crumbling. What's more, a lot of infrastructure exists now that would be completely uneconomic to build now. Look at the Second Avenue Subway in NYC that apparently somehow cost $17B+ to basically go 50 blocks. What's more, a lot of this infrastructure has not and is not being maintained.
So why is this unaffordable to build now? I suspect the answer is that labour is simply too expensive as is real estate.
So what if China is simply building infrastructure now while it's relatively cheap to do so? Obviously once built infrastructure depreciates but inflation also works in your favour (assuming positive inflation).
Now I don't know if that is the Chinese government's thinking but I find it an interesting thought.
[1] https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/133477/new-patv-e...