China is not likely to experience &quot;demise&quot; because it is a huge region of the world, an ethnicity, and a culture all at once.<p>However, its path toward growth can be interrupted and slowed. It has happened at least twice in the few hundred years: first by the late Qing dynasty, and then again in the Great Leap Forward.<p>That&#x27;s what people are worried about with China: that the tension between its &quot;communist&quot; government and its growth-pacified population will not be resolved without serious interruption to its progress.<p>In the U.S. there are mechanisms to relieve such tension. George W Bush mismanaged Katrina and Iraq, and the Republicans got booted from office shortly thereafter. If the Chinese leadership starts to lose the populations&#x27; confidence, how do the people pick new leadership?