So going by one statistic (GDP) is bad, but going by another (population) gets a pass because... China's "special"? I'm sorry, but that just sounds like a special pleading. I don't like this because it just turns arguments into a fact-free zone where objective facts don't matter and the only thing that does is handwavy vibes from either side. Is China going to be the dominant superpower? The supporters can handwave endlessly about robot armies and the superiority of an authoritarian political system. The detractors can handwave endlessly about the demographic crisis and the fragility of an authoritarian political system.

I litterally wrote a comment saying going by a single statistic is not sufficient.

and it's not China being hadwaving "special" but the measurement you are applying really not working well for a country which is only half capitalist and half planed economy. Which is a separate argument from dark factories which is about (non low end) production in China getting increasingly decoupled from human worker and in turn is way less affected from a population collapse then it would be in other countries. This has nothing to do with robot armies, an argument you just made up, even if China would lose half their population they still had more people and in turn can theoretically man a larger army _even if they have a by % much larger population collapse_, they don't need any Robot army. Similar no one said their system is superior. Or do you mean the US, as a two party system with an extremely powerful president is something some would call semi authoritarian. Either way China having done some pretty effective decisions in recent years in some areas doesn't in any way mean it's the better system. Like a Monarch can do grate decisions, but Monarchy is still is a very bad system.

Either way I also can't follow you how you jump from a listing of rough facts to there supposedly being a fact free zone.

What there isn't is a single simpel conclusion.

I mean it's a discussion where a single bad decision of a larger power can easily cause a unpredictable chain reaction which completely changes what are and aren't likely outcomes.

The world is inherently complex and not everything has a simple black/white conclusion, actually most things don't have one. You can only look at all available metrics and do a guess what the future will bring.