Too many Chinese think like merchants and too many diaspora Chinese are patriots in words only; they’re actually most loyal to their corporate masters for giving them their highly-valued engineering and tech jobs!
As much as it pains me to say so, to me, it seems that China has already lost this great competition, based, solely on its integration into the dominating economic order. I doubt that it will ever achieve separation sufficient to politico-economic independence. In fact, despite this being what it absolutely needs, I don’t believe this is what China actually wants.
For one, China really needs to re-think its emphasis on verticality, in everything. Stacking millions of people into gruesome uber-vertical tenements is no way to create domestic demand for the many, varied, products that China produces. With my driveway, walkway, front-yard, front-porch, backyard, patio, and garage (like everybody in my neighborhood, and most in my city), I create more demand for Chinese products than any but the highest-class of Chinese. Why not take advantage of the incredible transportation tech that’s been developed and build some horizontal cities in some of that empty space in central-China? With all that high-speed rail tech, folks could easily commute to the nearest profit-generating centers. Emphasize the building of houses, not goddamn apartments! Houses with porches and patios filled with furniture, yards with gardens and with swings for kids, gazebos with strings of lights and lawn furniture, and surrounded by fences, garages filled with lawn-care products and tools for all kinds of projects and bikes for the kids, and for the family, to ride!
Stop being the goddamn merchant to the world and focus on being the merchant to China!