Name: Will the China Model outcompete and overtake democratic capitalism?
Start: 2025-10-12T16:00:00-07:00
End: 2025-10-12T17:30:00-07:00
Location: Urban Plates

There is no denying the success of China's economic development strategy: A mix of political autocracy and partly state-planned, partly free market capitalism. In just three decades, China has moved hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty and become a peer competitor to the West in most cutting-edge technologies. The official state plan is to be THE premiere country in ALL major technology sectors by 2050 or earlier. China's rise in our adult lifetimes may be the most successful economic story in human history.

Yet, in the last decade or so cracks have appeared in the "China Model." Domestic problems persist and have slowed and threaten to end the miracle. And under Xi Jinping China has become much more authoritarian at home. In its foreign policies, China has grown more nakedly ruthless, and its neighbors fear it.

Moreover, democratic capitalism **still works**. In fact, there are multiple, successful models of mixed capitalism that are regularly validated by free and fair elections. There is a Scandinavian variant, one or more other European models, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, and maybe others.

Which economic and political model will win the future? Does there have to be a winner? Can both systems coexist in a hyper-connected, interdependent world without falling into economic calamity and/or war? Under President Trump, U.S. global leadership has...declined, let's say. I think Trump, Miller, et. al., want the USA to switch models, towards political authoritarianism and plutocratic capitalism and away from liberal democratic capitalism. Where does that leave China?

**Optional Backgrounders –**

**What is the China Model?**
· [“The Real China Model](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/real-china-model-wang-kroeber?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=twofa&utm_campaign=&utm_content=20251004&utm_term=FA%20This%20Week_Newsletter).” Foreign Affairs Mag current issue. Free to read if you give your email. **Recommended**.
· Or: Search AI for brief description of the China Model.
· **Big Qs**: Does a “China *Model*” really exist, i.e., is it exportable or unique to China? Can its economic (state managed capitalism) and political (authoritarian total control by CCP) elements be separated?

**China’s Motives and Threat -**
· [China wants broad influence to change the global system but doesn’t want to dominate or run it](https://thediplomat.com/2025/09/what-china-wants-with-global-governance/). **Recommended**. (Longer version: [China's goal will remain the same as it's been - all about locking in access to vast resource](https://ggtvstreams.substack.com/p/the-logic-behind-chinas-expansion).)
· No. [China DOES seek an empire of sorts](https://thediplomat.com/2025/07/chinas-aggression-isnt-about-communism-its-about-empire/). And [China is winning over the global South](https://nationalinterest.org/feature/china-winning-global-south-212370).
· Wrong. [It will fail at winning the South](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/why-china-wont-win-the-global-south/) and at building any [alternative to the Western order](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/fallacy-chinese-alternative-western-order).

**China’s Future + Sino-U.S. future -**
· [Xi Jinping’s Successor and the Future of China](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/xi-jinpings-successor-and-future-china). Foreign Affairs Mag same deal, free to read w/email.
· Long/detailed. The old [CW will be proven right in long run: Communism and economic success don’t mix](https://hbr.org/2021/05/what-the-west-gets-wrong-about-china). Harvard Biz Review.
· **Big Qs**: Can China keep piling up successes despite its many problems? Is Trump standing up to China or handing it the future by gutting science research, discouraging immigration, making us a laughingstock, etc.?

DavidG

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