Ignore Xi Jinping's deceptions. China is struggling.

The PRC will not follow the same path as the USSR. But whether Mark Twain ever said that “history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme,” the aphorism applies. It is quite obvious that Xi is presiding over a period of relative decline after many years of expansion and growth — recognizing that Beijing’s official statistics undoubtedly overstated that growth. It is apparent that the many internal cracks in the artificial edifice of control and progress — massive public and private debt; upside-down demographics of an aging, declining population; the lack of social mobility and a social safety net for hundreds of millions trapped in poverty; ecological and natural-resources challenges; the increasing expectations of prosperity for urban, educated elite that cannot be met; large-scale human rights violations and mistreatment of minorities; and an energy shortage, to name just a few — are beyond the party’s ability to reverse.

Meanwhile, many in the West who were bullish on the PRC just a decade ago are now rethinking their own assumptions and realizing they were mistaken. To pick just one example, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon acknowledged as much in recent comments chiding the CCP by saying that he expects his company will outlast it. Dimon effectively admitted that policy-makers and the business community had gotten the PRC wrong and that, in effect, the Trump administration was right for reversing course. That Dimon was persuaded to apologize for his comments almost within the same news cycle he made them doesn’t nullify their accuracy.