China: 10 warning signs to look for

Seventh, China may grow old before it grows rich. It could pay the price of its demographic brutality, where the "one child policy" has created a generation of spoilt "little emperors" and eventually a shortage of skilled workers. The one child policy was enforced for over three decades and it has been one of the world's most extraordinary population control measures.

Eighth, the Chinese could turn their back on modern materialism. The current level of wealth is unprecedented; a traditional Chinese gentleman before the Western colonizers arrived about two centuries ago was someone who wrote poetry and did drawings; only crude Westerners thought so much about money. Could China rediscover its spiritual roots and discard the Western fetish for materialism and economic growth?

Ninth, the Chinese military could embark on foreign adventures (starting with rebellious Taiwan) and so bankrupt the country through excessive military expenditure. This would be in keeping with the pattern of the European empires over the past half millennium: they began as small trading entities, then expanded their overseas commitments, then bankrupted themselves in overseas military operations.

Finally, China has done very well out of the US as a prime market for exports but there is a threat to China's continued economic growth if the US makes only a slow recovery. China is vulnerable to the flaw in the model that has worked so well in the post-1945 Asian economic story: heavy dependence on exports. China is vulnerable to a Western economic downturn – both in the US and EU - because there is not enough domestic Chinese economic demand.

To conclude China may become the world's dominant country by 2049 – or it may not.