Why would you presume that? CCP has become far more autocratic, and the goals of autocracy:

1) maintain the autocracy

2) have a strong police to preserve the autocracy from rebellion

3) have a good enough economy to defend the autocracy from external threats

... ten more "for the autocracy" points ...

improving the country for the people

Also, Zeihan overselling or not, China is facing an unprecedented demographic decline. So to the parent comment about "not doing anything and winning", honestly the US can do the same and watch China implode demographically.

CCP under Xi has reverted to form after some temporary loosening up, but it's still way less autocratic than it was during the Mao era.

Also, the CCP ultimately derives its legitimacy from materially improving the country for the Chinese people: back in the day fighting back against the Japanese and corrupt warlords, now economic progress. Both the Chinese people and the CCP know well what it means if they stop delivering and the "Mandate of Heaven" expires.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven

China's demographic decline will take decades and unless the CCP really fucks things up (eg. invading Taiwan and failing miserably at it), it's going to be a Japan/Korea-style slow-motion stagnation, not a dramatic implosion.

Mao killed 50-60 million people with starvation.

Yeah I hope he's better than that

Interesting tangent to bring up. How many people does America kill?

Mao killed his own people. The only possible historical analogue is what USSR argued about missing people from the Great Depression.

US mostly kills people outside its borders.

The closest analogue would be the culling of the buffalo, an intentional effort to destroy the food supply of the natives.

Americans don't like to acknowledge this.

But even that's a little different. Application of new farming practices is not an intentional genocide. The culling of the buffalo was an intentional genocide.

I mean, US was the shining beacon of supposedly the best capitalistic policies are, but look at where it got us.

Meanwhile, China has been getting better and better, looking at US as an example, and correctly avoiding providing the "freedoms" given to us in US in avoiding the same fate.

I'm a strong China hawk. But Beijing currently has an opportunity to craft a global alliance that balances the U.S. in a way that America has historically excelled at. Put another way, the idiots who voted this man in have turned America into an Axis power.

That is normal; the world worked that way prior to 1990.

The real change is that the US economy isn't obviously superior to the next however many economies combined. Consequently the US is losing the ability to impose its opinions on others as fundamental truths. It looks like everyone in the West will have to re-learn negotiation and it'll probably be a rocky process.

> the world worked that way prior to 1990

Sort of. I’d move the needle to the 1970s, when Soviet power was on an obvious downside. Realpolitik would dictate, at that time, for Europe and Asia to balance America. But we were a good ally. So balancing wasn’t seen to be necessary.

> So balancing wasn’t seen to be necessary.

Wasn't seen as possible, an important distinction. The Australian experience so far is the US demands we ... basically commit war crimes every so often. Or whatever the term is for invading countries without justification. It is a lot like being good friends with a shark; it is important to keep them pointed at other things and the shark isn't ever going to go out of its way for you unless it is hungry and the friendship is ending.

The world was probably better for us when the US was unconstrained by reality; but the reality is the US have been behaving very irresponsibly for decades. Trump is on the upper end of the presidential scale in recent history, the world can't cope with another Bush or Biden. Obama might have been able to get better diplomatic results.