China has risen to be recognized as a major economic power this century. A motto of China's President Xi Jinping reportedly is “The rise of the East, and the decline of the West.” This rise of China has been concerning many in the West. Is China or Europe prophesied to economically dominate the world before Jesus returns? What about "peak China"? Did Peter Zeihan say that China might collapse in ten years? Might China's hukou system contribute to social unrest and other problems? Does the United Nations forecast that China's population will drop by 620 million people by the end of this century? Has Europe been taking steps to reduce China's influence in Latin America? Dr. Thiel and Steve Dupuie go over these matters.

A written article of related interest is available titled 'Politico: Why China is not as powerful as the West might think'

Politico: Why China is not as powerful as the West might think

COGwriter

China continues to take steps to rise and increase its influence. While many see China as the power to replace the USA, others note that China has various issues. Here is something from Politico:

Why China is not as powerful as the West might think
August 3, 2023
President Xi Jinping wants to project China as a powerful trade partner — or dangerous adversary — to virtually any country hoping to be successful in the 21st century.
“The rise of the East, and the decline of the West” is his motto. As Chinese growth rocketed and Western politicians fretted over how to respond, it became a national catchphrase, too.
But among the Chinese people — and increasingly in the chancelleries and boardrooms of Europe — a different story is beginning to be told: Beijing’s march toward global economic domination may not be invincible after all.
China managed only weak GDP growth after belatedly liberating itself from pandemic restrictions. The property market is in crisis and youth unemployment has risen to hazardous levels, with one estimate putting it at 50 percent. Private entrepreneurs increasingly live in fear of what the state will do to their businesses and consumers have stopped spending the way they did in the pre-COVID good times. …
Even the Communist Party leaders aren’t hiding their problem. At their annual pre-summer Politburo meeting, which sets the tone for the economic work for the remainder of the year, party officials judged that the economy “is facing new difficulties and challenges, mainly due to insufficient domestic demand, difficulties in the operation of some enterprises, many risks and hidden dangers in key areas, and a grim and complex external environment,” state news agency Xinhua quoted the Politburo as saying.
Getting out
In Europe, as well as the U.S., governments are reassessing their own economic vulnerabilities radically. …
Western leaders from the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen to U.S. President Joe Biden now routinely talk about economic “de-risking” from China. The peril of linking too closely to the Chinese economy has even hit home with Olaf Scholz, traditionally seen as Europe’s leading dove on China policy. …
According to Eskelund, the EU chamber chief, 11 percent of businesses surveyed last year said they were weighing up whether to leave China. This year, the exact same share of companies reported they had already taken the decision to go. https://www.politico.eu/article/china-xi-jinping-economy-gdp-business-growth-power-west-eu-us/

Yes, there are concerns about China in the West and particularly in Europe.

And Europe is taking steps. Politico reported the following a few weeks ago:

Europe tries to win Latin America back from China
DE-RISKING TAKES EUROPE (BACK) TO LATAM: Latin American leaders such as Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Argentinian counterpart Alberto Fernández are gathering in Brussels for a two-day EU summit with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. …
Still, the EU sees a clear strategic need to step up engagement with the region thanks to China. “Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe need each other more than ever before,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a conference with Latin American businesses in Brussels on Monday. “The world is taking a hard impact for the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and this happens against the backdrop of China’s growing assertiveness abroad.”
The supply of critical raw materials such as lithium is, well, critical. The EU gets 97 percent of its lithium from China, von der Leyen warned last week. It’s a focus shared by Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský. “China’s growing influence in Latin America is a great concern,” Lipavský told China Watcher on the sidelines of the summit. “We must make efforts to prevent China’s monopoly and counterbalance its huge investments in Latin America in mining and processing of critical raw materials. Unlike China, the EU is not interested in making Latin America its vassal.”
For now, LatAm watches with cautious optimism: “Latin America and the Caribbean was not a priority for Europe,” Argentina’s Undersecretary for Latin American & Caribbean Affairs Gustavo Martínez Pandiani told POLITICO on Friday, referring to the years since the last gathering in Brussels in 2015, billed as “a partnership for the next generation.” Pandiani added: “We do appreciate that Europe is coming back to Latin America and the Caribbean. We don’t want to limit that comeback just to the consequences of the war.” https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/china-watcher/europe-tries-to-win-latin-america-back-from-china/

As I have written for years, Latin America will mainly align with Europe (see also Ursula von der Leyen making trade deals in Latin America).

As far as China goes, notice something from earlier this year:

’10 years left’: This famed geopolitical analyst says China is going to collapse in the next decade …
February 19, 2023

Is China heading for a total collapse: political, economic and demographic?
Conventional wisdom says no way. It boasts a massive military and an iron grip on its people, and owns a whopping $870 billion in U.S. debt. …
While that’s no recipe for demise, some people would argue that China will soon be hanging on by a thread. That includes geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan, whose new forecast makes a case few would otherwise consider.
Zeihan raised eyebrows in a January interview with Joe Rogan, in which he predicted the People’s Republic would collapse in 10 years. Rogan, though no stranger to controversy, was taken aback. …
From multiple and significant angles, China’s economy is under heavy strain. In particular, the nation has experienced rare civil unrest due to its strict zero-COVID-19 policy, which locked down vast sections of the economy, lowered industrial output and curbed consumer spending.
Some important metrics offer evidence of an economic contraction. The country’s exports dropped 9.9% in December 2022, while a slowdown in growth also weighs on the country’s outlook. …
As for its population, China suffers from a disadvantage in its demographics.
China’s population is getting older — fast. As its people age and retire, fewer working-age individuals are around to support them. The United Nations forecasts the nation’s population — now roughly 1.42 billion — to fall below 800 million by the year 2100.
The nation’s one-child policy, in place for more than three decades before it ended in 2016, exacerbated the problem and today threatens long-term economic prospects. …
China’s economy relies heavily on international trade; exports accounted for more than 20.4% of its nearly $18 trillion gross domestic product in 2021, according to the World Bank. That makes China the world’s largest exporter.
But trade dependence makes China vulnerable to global economic fluctuations and trade policy shifts. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed that reliance when demand for Chinese products dropped. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-years-left-famed-geopolitical-160000503.html

Yes, China is facing problems.

And yes, various government policies are issues.

A few years ago Bloomberg News, reported some claimed that we have seen “Peak China”:

February 10, 2020
Plenty of experts have lived to regret their predictions of the downfall, the collapse — the peak of anything China. But here it is. A bold call for the ages: We very likely have just witnessed Peak China (as an export powerhouse). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-10/trade-war-latest-china-may-have-just-peaked-as-an-export-power

I have warned for many years that China would NOT be the power to lead the world’s economy in the 21st century as the Bible points to Europe doing that. Notice one such posted warning from 2014:

Now the Bible shows that Europe (Revelation 13 & 18), and not Asia, will be the major economic leader in the future prior to Jesus’ return (watch Can You Prove that the Beast to Come is European?). But what about China?
Some believe that it is surpassing the USA and the rest of the world, and hence, China will be the leader of the 21st century. The Bible does not teach that it can hold that position for much time, if at all. (Thiel B. BRICS have a political agenda? China to soon be less relevant? COGwriter, January 25, 2014)

While China has grown tremendously, economically, one of the things that most Westerners do not realize is that China has a system that prevents its citizens from agrarian areas from having the same rights as those in urban areas. It is called the hukou. Here is more information about that:

The hukou
Through a rigorous and rigid household registration system designed to control the movement of China’s 1.3 billion people, the central government classifies all its citizens as either city dwellers or rural peasants. The registration, also known in Chinese as hukou, determines not only a citizen’s residence but also what kind of social services individuals are eligible for…In Beijing, which has an estimated 5 million migrant workers, none of these people are allowed to obtain state-sponsored health care or schooling if their hukou is registered in their hometowns—which most likely it is. As a result, their children—many of whom are born in the Chinese capital—can only attend privately-run and unapproved schools. (Mong A, Gu B. In Beijing, 40,000 students stranded. MSNBC, August 19, 2011. http://behindthewall.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/19/7413538-in-beijing-40000-students-stranded?lite)
What is hukou …
A hukou determines where your kids can go to school, where you can own a home, city or regions where you can access healthcare, find permanent jobs and receive loans. …
Historically, the hukou system and the danwei have formed the basis of social order allowing Beijing to control any labour strikes or protests by workers. …
The hukou system has allowed the Beijing government to control labour mobility in the vast network of industrial production hubs across major cities.
As foreign travel and work opportunities have become difficult since the pandemic started, there is growing frustration among the youth. …
The change in the hukou system is responding to the lack of jobs and growing frustration with Beijing’s zero-Covid policy. Even the foreign talent China has relied on to fill the skills gap continues to exit the megacities. Beijing isn’t depending on the return of foreign workers anymore, and instead, the strategy appears to be to boost growth at home through policy realignment.
The jobs crisis and flailing economic growth has Beijing worried. The Chinese cities now seem confident with the idea of permitting a demographic change within their territories.
The growing moment to change the hukou system has the potential to transform the social order in Chinese society, which will leave an impact on politics. 07/06/22 https://theprint.in/opinion/eye-on-china/growing-frustration-in-youth-has-the-chinese-govt-worried-it-sees-solution-in-hukou/1026134/

The hukou looks to be a factor in economic problems and social unrest in China. Notice also:

August 16, 2022
Independent estimates put the number of left-behind children at around 70 million with one or both parents away, and 31 million with both goneA major factor in decisions to leave children behind is the hukou, China’s rigid household registration system, which makes relocating very difficult …
China’s “left-behind” children. The term refers to families where either one or both parents live away for most of the time from their children, mainly as migrant workers in big cities.
Official government figures claimed there were almost 13 million left-behind children in 2020. However, most independent estimates put the figure at around 70 million for households where one or both parents live away, and 31 million for those with both parents gone. The vast majority of these children are from impoverished rural areas.
A major contributing factor to parents’ decision to leave their children for years at a time is the country’s rigid system of household registration, known as hukou.
Under this system, those without registration find accessing schooling, housing and healthcare extremely difficult. For migrant workers it is often impossible to register in the cities where they work, meaning their children are left without any public services unless they remain in the region where they were born. https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3189084/i-dont-want-money-i-just-want-mum-sobbing-boy

Even people who move from agrarian regions to the cities, they still are normally registered as agrarian/rural and do not get the same rights or even education for their children–so children are often left behind. This disparity of registration, combined with severe pollution, corruption, and a host of other problems, will affect China more than most realize–despite its generally rising wealth–a lot of which is invested in places that may default.

Problems in China will help Europe rise up.

Now the Bible does say that all trading nations will have become wealthy trading with Babylon (which will be the restored European Empire–not Asia), and that they really will prosper during the beginning years of the great tribulation:

3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury (Revelation 18:3).
13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your traders. They bartered human lives and vessels of bronze for your merchandise. 14 Those from the house of Togarmah traded for your wares with horses, steeds, and mules (Ezekiel 27:13-14).

Thus, merchandising Asia (Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and others), as the world’s most populous region, is prophesied to attain wealth from the coming restored European Empire, but it will not then be the economically, most-powerful block of nations in the world. It may well be because of debt defaults and internal unrest that China will not have the abilities to lead the world this century as it seems to hope.

Expect to see change in Europe and China.

UPDATE 08/06/23: We just uploaded the following related video:

15:02
China’s Rising, But …
China has risen to be recognized as a major economic power this century. A motto of China’s President Xi Jinping reportedly is “The rise of the East, and the decline of the West.” This rise of China has been concerning many in the West. Is China or Europe prophesied to economically-dominate the world before Jesus returns? What about “peak China”? Did Peter Zeihan say that China might collapse in ten years? Might China’s hukou system contribute to social unrest and other problems? Does the United Nations forecast that China’s population will drop by 620 million people by the end of this century? Has Europe been taking steps to reduce China’s influence in Latin America? Dr. Thiel and Steve Dupuie go over these matters.

Here is a link to our video: China’s Rising, But …

Biblical prophecies are coming to pass.

As Jesus said: