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In 2019, Collin Meisel and Jonathan D. Moyer wrote “Preparing for China’s Rapid Rise and Decline” for War on the Rocks, looking at how “China’s rapid transition toward a downward trajectory will pose a unique set of national security challenges for the United States that could prove even more difficult than those posed by China’s rise.” In light of China’s economic slowdown, we asked Collin to look back on the piece and its recommendations. Read more below.Image: Department of Defense photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. D. Myles CullenIn your article, you look at the risks posed by Chinese “decline” on the global stage. Now that we’re seeing sinking Chinese economic numbers, has that period of decline begun?I don’t believe so — and if so, then not for the structural, and largely demographic, reasons that international studies professor Jonathan Moyer and I described in the piece. While some have argued that demographics are the source of China’s recent woes, China’s age dependency ratio (around 45 percent) — the ratio of children and elderly individuals to working-age adults — is still below the global average (around 55 percent) and far below that of Japan (71 percent). The median age of China’s population (around 38) is well below that of Japan (around 49) and not yet very far above the global average (around 32).By mid-century, however, China’s demographics will begin to look more and more like Japan with a much older and more dependent society than the global average. This is when China’s decline will be exceedingly difficult to avoid.In our 2019 essay, our use of the phrase “rapid decline” was relative to the relative rise and relative decline of other great powers in recent centuries. Britain and the United States each enjoyed roughly a century of global dominance, with their global shares of