A The first school predicts a sudden regime death for the Chinese communist party. After 50 years in power, without a single election, it faces a crisis of legitimacy.
Signs of collapse lie all around, triggered by massive rural emigration, get-rich-quick practices, mounting corruption, lawlessness, widening income disparity, weak public finances and a proliferation of sects to fill the vacuum left by communist ideals.
The second view is that of China as a second-rank, medium-sized and introverted regional power. This notes that China formed 30 per cent of the world economy in 1820, fell to 6 per cent by 1950, fell to about 1.5 per cent by the time Mao died.
Now it's back up to 3.5 per cent, which shows some recuperation but is still well below 1950 levels. The view contends that the communist regime has been doing pretty well but continues to face huge problems, so don't take its threats and demands too seriously.
The third view is that China is an 400kg gorilla about to unleash itself in the world jungle. This view of a belligerent, assertive and rising power is widely represented in some circles in Asia-Pacific and the US.
The emphasis here is on the controversial size of its military budget, which is estimated to be about US$60 billion (S$100 billion) a year, dwarfing most of its neighbours. China is represented as Germany a century ago, rife with internal social tensions, growing nationalism and xenophobia, and seeking its own place in the sun.
The fourth one, which I'm leaning towards, is of market democratisation - that China has no option in the long run but to integrate itself into a pre-constituted world.
Here, China is the growth miracle, enjoying 9 per cent growth year on year right through to 2030, when it begins to overtake Japan. The communist system is a legacy of its past and extracting itself from that is the name of the game.
It is heading towards absorbing the norms of the Western world, introducing the rule of law, greater political freedoms, modern means of communications and there's no going back.
When you join the rest of the world, you do so on the rest of the world's terms.
This does not mean China will begin to imitate the West, but there will be an evolution of its existing systems with more accountability built into it.
So where do YOU fall amongst those four categories?
Of course you don't see the opposition. It's everywhere. Mobile phones without freedom of speech? Foreign churches without foreign ideas? American DVDs without American ideas?
Keep dreaming.
The internet connections that flow to the West carry millions of new minds every year. People will not be content to live as peasants under the Communist aristocrats forever, especially when they know full well how many rights the 'barbarians' enjoy.
All these signs are there but what is the unity between unemployed peasants, Buddhists from Tibet, Islamists from Xinjiang province and discontented intellectuals? Where is the link? Very little. And where is the organisation that can bring them together?
Traditionally, that organization has been force. China is a wide country with many deep differences, both linguistic and cultural. Even among the Han they are far from monolithic. When freedom makes her bloody arrival in China, the call of separatism, now spoken in whispers, will be heard far and wide.
But although China has got off in the new century on the right foot, I think we are in for a rough ride. It has never been and is not going to be smooth
Like a man trying to walk without moving his right leg, China will soon find that without intellectual freedom, they will not be able to fully realize their potential. Once they dare to move the away from Total Obedience to the Chinese Communist Party, there will be a terrible breakdown in Chinese society. It will be for the best, in the long run, but it will indeed be a rough ride.
However, the major fallacy in the essay is his belief that a Communist-Fascist elitist society will peacefully evolve into a somewhat autocratic but relatively free society like Singapore.
Communist-Fascist govenments do not ever voluntarly relinquish power or allow such evolution to take place. Autocratic anti-communist governments such as Taiwan under Chaing-Kai Shek, South Korea under Sygman Rhee and Singapore today do, however, evolve into functioning democratic republics.
with the demographics of China creating a surplus pool of warrior ants, it seems a natural step for some Chinese Hitler to take, and unfortunately it will probably resonate deeply amongst a large swath of the Chinese population.
the race is on between the burgeoning Chinese "middle class" who just want to make a living and the Chinese Communist/Military class, occasionally known as the PLA