It only seems like that because journalists like to write the same things as every other journalist. For almost 20 years I read stories about how China would surpass the United States in both economic and military power.
There are a lot of underlying facts to China's investment driven growth cycle that can be explained in math and global trade balances. Their reserves can be spent very fast. GDP growth doesn't matter so much if it's being spent on infrastructure that won't be maintained and will fall apart. In the past year or two, a giant piece of the GDP growth may have been from financial tricks as insolvent companies try to shift money around, offering high interest rates in the process (continous economic growth for a really long time mean no recession to shake out the leveraged companies which are surviving by finance alone, or outright scams.)
In the very long term, I think what will matter is the messed up demographics (shrinking population off balanced by too many males) and lack of diversity.
Japan had a similar death of growth situation after their investment driven model ran out of steam and their demographics shrunk. The big difference being their population was nearly all living a first world lifestyle by that time. China's isn't.
China can still be an important country. They can make a ton of stuff. They can wield outsized military influence globally thanks to nuclear weapons.
The suspicion is that diversity of ideas and experiences allow groups to more easily evolve and solve problems. Even in a room full of males, if some come from different industries, they may more easily be able to pull together best practices each other had never heard of. Does this also apply to age, gender, ethnic, and cultural background? May be it doesn't.
At the least I believe that this gives the US a huge advantage in attracting talent because the best from around the world can feel more at home here.
This needs to be observed through long term economic endurance rather than measurements of shorter term investment-driven growth like China, Japan, or Brazil experienced.
There are a lot of underlying facts to China's investment driven growth cycle that can be explained in math and global trade balances. Their reserves can be spent very fast. GDP growth doesn't matter so much if it's being spent on infrastructure that won't be maintained and will fall apart. In the past year or two, a giant piece of the GDP growth may have been from financial tricks as insolvent companies try to shift money around, offering high interest rates in the process (continous economic growth for a really long time mean no recession to shake out the leveraged companies which are surviving by finance alone, or outright scams.)
In the very long term, I think what will matter is the messed up demographics (shrinking population off balanced by too many males) and lack of diversity.
Japan had a similar death of growth situation after their investment driven model ran out of steam and their demographics shrunk. The big difference being their population was nearly all living a first world lifestyle by that time. China's isn't.
China can still be an important country. They can make a ton of stuff. They can wield outsized military influence globally thanks to nuclear weapons.