How about the top down governing approach that works in some situations and is a disaster in others? Currently favorable but times change.

Second, we should not hope that an opponent does worse than us to make us look better but we should simply better ourselves in the first place. Currently I'm seeing only decline and disunity in the western civilization, very short term thinking and lack of vision, but I'm aware that's just a phase that is possible to flip anytime.

I’m not hoping it goes bad for China. I’m just waiting for the CCP to turn against itself. It’s a matter of time. Too ignorant and unprepared.

The question is whether they will fall soon enough

That would be good for Chinese themselves in terms of human development, this growth has been stunted quite a bit but not sure if overall China would ever see such growth they had during the CCP. And that is part due to policies of IP theft and nationalism and so on. In the long term CCP is terrible for China but the last few decades it really worked well for them.

Indeed! The CCP's time has past for sure. Nothing good can come from them at this point.

Pair (2) with a lack of immigration, which is what bails out the US from this problem (though it wouldn't be as extreme in any case). Wikipedia says China let in 1800 people in to US' 1.2 million in 2016.

This lack of immigration probably wouldn't be easily reversed, because Chinese governance and perhaps culture aren't well suited to absorbing heterogeneous groups.

China's total new births last year was ~10 million. Lowest on record but still multiples more than US + immigration will replenish. Chinese scale = enough new birth/talent without immigration to rival entire OECD block until 2050s.

IMO China doesn't need immigration to survive the demographic crisis, it needs excess labour to manage the transition, declining / smaller total population is the goal - simply too many people right now. Tons of labour can be arbitraged between poor and rich provinces or imported from poorer neighbors on remittance basis without the massive welfare commitments of immigration. Western countries with comprehensive social welfare systems sustained by massive immigration have greater risk of collapse - note all the protests happening in first world countries due to system already fraying. Versus China where the bottom 50% will incrementally improve because they're barely above poverty in the first place. The income gap is so massive that it takes relative less resource redistribution to maintain stability. When 600M / 40% of the population accounts for 7% national GDP, a few years of "slow" national growth @5% generates enough wealth to increase their welfare by 40%. Compared to west where all signs indicate each generation will struggle more than the previous, combined with massive immigration and you have recipe for political instability. Unsustainable social safety net and demographic change due to immigration is as much of a ticking time bomb as declining demographics.