Posted by Carl,

I'm not terribly worried that China will grow to the point where its success swallows the world. I'm more concerned that an economic failure could cause major civil disturbance, ending with a takeover by military hardliners looking to expel the weak corrupt capitalists, return to the pure ways of mao, and make China great through conquest.
The China that Mao controlled was a much different China than today. He controlled a China largely populated by uneducated peasants, and he conducted a few purges to get rid of a few million potential dissenters, while the world turned a blind eye. Today China is much larger educated class that has high expectations of brighter tomorrow. I doubt the military would support a Maoist type purge to stop dissent, but if they did the world would respond in a number of ways (trade embarko, etc.) that China would be forced to respond to, and they know that. They also know that Taiwan has a functional economic model, and it may not be out of the realm of the possible if the CCP had a major crisis that the government of Taiwan could assume control finally uniting the Chinese again, so this may be a reason China is nervous about Taiwan. A lot of economic analysts think China's bubble is going to burst in the next two years, what happens when (and if) that occurs is the million dollar question.