But: trees do not grow to the sky, and trends that appear inevitable at one point of time can appear doomed from the perspective of only a decade or two later. In brief, to continue rolling out the clichés, it is difficult to forecast, especially about the future, and it would be unwise to assume that China will be immune to future economic crises.
Nonetheless, even if there were to be a crisis or other interruptions to growth in the future, it is on balance reasonable to believe that Chinese growth will continue at a rate that on average well exceeds that of countries at the current frontier of economic development – and that the Chinese economy will be the largest in the world, measured in dollars at market exchange rates, within the lifetimes of many in this audience today.