John Derbyshire is sometimes way off the mark but he may have this right. There are two prevailing views of the potential of China. Both may be partially right.
I don't believe China will be a colossus in the foreseeable future; I don't think she will be an angry, disintegrating rogue state, either. The greatest probability, it seems to me, is that China will become a sort of larger version of Mexico during that country's 70 years of one-party rule: self-absorbed, just stable enough to hold together, with huge disparities of income but enough general prosperity to stave off revolution, ruled by a corrupt and incompetent political class.