I wonder if the rest of the Sinosphere will eventually suffer from the same sort of economic malaise as Japan, once they reach first-world status. They all have hierarchical cultures that make creative destruction difficult. So while they can quickly catch up to the West through efficient social organization, they can't break them down and replace them with something better.
Counter to most western thought, you can in fact have heavy social control but small-government in terms of economics ala Singapore and have a country make rapid economic process. China's CRC can loosen their grip on business, or selectively ignore it often enough, while still maintaining heavy control of culture and social issues, while still maintaining high growth rates. As we've seen in the last few decades. It d…
Both of these to me take advantage of inefficient neighbouring countries (in a doing business sense) to offer a safe place for those with the resources to do business. I don't know if you can apply that example to somewhere like China.
I also cannot see them lessening their grip on business. Ultimately money is power and in the past the Communist party has always seemed to favour maintaining political control over economic consequences. I cannot see them allowing potentially competing power structures to develop outside of the Communist party structure.