These 5 Facts Explain Why China Is Pulling Ahead of the West

Five years ago, the consensus was that China, with its ballooning middle class, would need to undertake painful, liberalizing political reforms lest its state capitalist system eventually collapse. Today, it looks like China’s political and economic system is better positioned for the future than those of its major Western rivals — as I argued in a longer essay for TIME this week. These five facts help explain why: 1.