For an exercise in how wrong we can be, here's Steve Yegge two years ago telling us to prepare to speak Mandarin because China is going to reign supreme and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Steve deleted the article but the internet remembers.
China misses GDP targets by 1% for a single quarter, every news outlet reports on it, and in five years everyone is going to wonder how China has gotten to the place it has. That's basically happened repeatedly over the past 15-20 years.
Either way I doubt it will be that much of an economic catastrophe, even if it is a humanitarian one.
China does have serious issues with its real estate economy and fertility. But the US also got through the grave issues of 2008, and China still has 1.4b people who take rigorous education a lot more seriously than many in America. And they will have far more people than us in the foreseeable future too.
Do not count China out, they are a “hurricane,” are dangerously aimed at Taiwan, but with better understanding we can hopefully all defuse the situation amicably.