One thing to keep in mind about China--
They have half our GDP with four times the people. So their GDP per capita is 1/8 of ours. Their growth has been on a pretty small base.
It remains to be seen whether they can keep growing without some massive social upheaval. It's easy to keep a nation of subsistence farmers under control. Their increased wealth may force political change. Or their government may choose control over growth.
I would be reluctant to try to predict what China will look like in 20 years. I think it is more or less unknowable at this point.
Agree with your premise. I think that the history of the last half century or so has shown that there are some inherent advantages to the western style free democratic approach as it intersects with economic development, particularly in technological applications. (The internet would have never evolved in a communist environment). I'm old enough to remember back in the early 60"s how it seemed that the other side's economic system appeared at the time to have some advantages that would "bury us" well, we know how that turned out. In my opinion the system the Chinese have implemented of a sort of command economy with capitalistic free enterprise at a lower manufacturing level and few true democratic freedoms will prove to be ultimately unstable and less of a threat than we now think.