"It collapsed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union due to it failing abjectly economically, he;ped along in large measure by Reagan and Thatcher IMHO. Red China has not suffered from either of those issues to date."
Actually the collapse of teh Soviet Union is because they're ideologues -- they followed the Marxist path to death AND they joined in the arms race with the US by building more nukes and crippling their already feeble economy. Had they ignore the arms race and move toward a market economy, the result would have been very different.
Deng realized this in 1981, that the communist economy simply won't work. If he hadn't reformed the economy, the 1989 protest would have turned into a revolution similar to Eastern Europe, though the results will not be democracy but other form of dictatorship. China is still, in my opinion, not yet ready for democracy. It needs rule of law first.
They are using their wealth to accellerate their arms development strategically, airforce wise, army, and particularly with their navy. My point is that we are a major part of that funding and that without significant reform towards a more free society, we should not help fund such a potentially dangerous adversary...and that is exactly what we are doing.
We need another Reagan to come along and challenge the ChiComms by making it clear that we will no longer play that game.
The Bush administration is finally begninng to make more and more moves that indicate they may be moving in that direction.
Just my opinion.