There are still 1.3b of them or so, and even with xi staying in power til death, the country will race towards a future they prepare for. China does not only plan for 5 or 10 years. They plan for 50 or 100 years. Add in the fact that they shipped thousands of well educated chinese males, from the 1 child progrom, to african countries to take over from inside, with no wars, to have access to natural resources, and eventually to be overlords, barring the great road experiment, and china is still ascendent.