China was and always will be constrained by geopolitics of its position. On the north you have Siberia and Russia with 8000 nukes, west you have desert regions with muslim indegineous pop, south are Himalayas and east is a body of water surrounded by string of pro-american island states.
East being their only option, they are trying to break this cordon sanitaire with their meddling in South China Sea for over 10 years now and they have little to show for it. They still need 30 years or more for building up their blue water navy so they can oust US presence from that part of the Pacific.
Historically their economy has been multiple times as high as 30% of worlds gdp (15th century Ming, early 19th century Manchu) and you can see how little impact they have had on the globe then. Little Portugal with 1million pop in 1450-1520 was a world power with bigger impact than them, all thanks to their geopolitical position.
And this leaves us with the current situation and the escalating trade war. We have 2 giants, one on the steep decline and one on the rise but with limited capabilities, in a boxing match which both will lose.
With hoping for Chinese victory or at least for them to hold their ground for as long as possible we are actually setting the terrain for a beautiful future of being free of both one and the other.
And eventual resurgence of old european colonial empires of France, UK and Russia. Second half od 21st century can very well end up looking like 19th century in the terms of european imperialism and USA's and China's irrelevance. All they need to do is to bleed themselves enough to the point of mutual collapse.
