"Within the next decade, China will overtake the US economically, despite not being a democracy."



Not so. The USA is not and has never been a democracy. Its founding fathers hated democracy and mentioned the term nowhere in the constitutional documents. The USA is a republic, as every school child can tell you, since it is to the republic and the flag for which it stands that they pledge their allegiance each day. In China, at least, their elected representatives get to vote on presidential appointments. In America, voting on presidential appointments is done by non-elected people–as we saw with President Trump.



It's lazy to deny that China is a democracy just because her application of democracy is different from ours and we can't be bothered looking into it. China is far more democratic than, say, the USA, in both form and substance. Not only do more Chinese vote but voter turnout is 20% higher than America's and voter trust and satisfaction with their government is many times higher.



No matter how you slice it–constitutionally, electively, popularly, procedurally, operationally, substantively or financially–China comes out ahead. In survey after survey, it's the most trusted government in the world and its policies enjoy the highest support. Don't believe me? Read 'Selling Democracy to the Chinese' https://www.unz.com/article/selling-democracy-to-china/.



In elections overseen by the Carter Center, Chinese voters elect 3,000 Congresspeople, who elect a permanent subcommittee that participates in personnel selection.



China, with her thousands of years experience of governance theory and practice, considers it inappropriate to choose leaders by public vote. Neither corporations nor the military allow their shareholders or members to publicly vote on their choice of senior executives. Why should anyone choose government leaders that way? Instead, they publish the top 1000 candidates' track records in excruciating detail but leave the final recommendations to experts. If you study the candidates' records yourself, you will quickly understand why the top guys are where they are. They earned it the hard way.



Choosing heads of State requires much closer scrutiny, so HR experts and previous heads of state and a Congressional subcommittee carry on many face-to-face interviews before choosing the Final Seven and the Big Two. Once everyone is on the same page, the top positions are put before Congress for their seal of approval. Their customary, almost-unanimous votes here are not a reflection of their alleged 'rubber stamp' function, but of near-consensus in a consensus-driven culture.



As we now see, this system produces both highly competent leaders, excellent policy outcomes and very happy voters: 96% of Chinese have confidence in their government and 83% say their country is run for everyone’s benefit rather than for a few big interest groups (36% of Americans think the same). http://www.wvsevsdb.com/wvs/WVSData.jsp?Idioma=I+(http://www.wvsevsdb.com/wvs/WVSData.jsp?Idioma=I)



80–90% of Chinese trust their government, the highest trust level of any national government, according to the Edelman 2016 Report, . https://www.slideshare.net/EdelmanAPAC/2016-edelman-trust-barometer-china-english?qid=c13f229d-8a8f-4a93-bce8-aeb779e8cc70&v=&b=&from_search=1 .



And "Nine in ten Chinese are happy with the direction of their country (87%), feel good about the current state of their economy (91%) and are optimistic about China’s economic future (87%)." According to the Pew Charitable Trusts http://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/3/.