I feel like every year analyst just say the same thing?

The PRC is currently in an era of decline relative to the western world and is no longer on track to overtake the us or europe and it hasnt been since COVID.

The most obvious indicator of this is the economic statistics. Acording to the PRC itself its gdp went from 18 trillion in 2021 to 19 trillion today. That is roughly 7% growth over the period. While the us went from 23 trillion to 30 trillion over the same period, roughly 30% growth. And the EU went from 16 trillion usd to 22 trillion. About 37% growth over the same period. This shows a china that has fallen behind its rivals and that is only backed up by its population.

China saw its first offical population decline in 2022 as a result of the one child policy, its hard to find any statistics are arent biased, but acorrding to the government projections, chinas population is expected to drop from 1.4 billion to 600 million by the end of the century. Just from natural decline, assuming they dont get into any wars with other powers. This is not a number that would inspire anyone with confidence.

As for the Chinese military, ignoring potential training or command issues coming from the purges, they have a severe disadvantage when it comes to the combat systems needed to fight a real war. Ill focus on naval tech since thats probably the biggest weakness. China's naval tech is still decades behind the west and of their 3 carriers 2 are old soviet designs that were out of date in the 70s and the only one they designed themselves is roughly 60% as capable as a us carrier. In addition in the time it took them to design and biuld it the us biult 2, britian biult 2, and japan biult 1. While they have a larger surface fleet they dont have the capital ships to contest any objective outside their home waters. They are decades behind and cant match either the us or europes carrier fleets.

Diplomatically chinas seen its soft power collapse during and after the pandemic. With a record low of 21% global approval in 2021. While trumps antics have lead to a slight uptick, especially in europe and the developed world. China is still deeply unpopular with the vast majority of the worlds population. Meanwhile in terms of development aid the us overtook china in 2023 and is continuing to dominate in Africa, with notably the DRC signing an alliance with the US late last year and seizing the output of Chinese biult mines to send them to the US.

In all of these fields china has at best stalled out, at worst they have been over taken. Chinese power peaked in 2019.

I remember a few months ago, there was talk of the economy crashing and tanking, but it seems to be doing okay so far?

What are your thoughts?

Also, ishowspeed’s China stream tour seemed to be really good press for China as a whole, Speed’s western audience got a glimpse into what China is actually like and it seemed to help boost overall public perception, which could add to China’s economy.