I remember Japan talking about replacing its similar demographic problems with robots.
Didn't happen. Now ai and robotics is apparently progressed... But I'm guessing this will be some grand vision in the CCP to save their country, while at the same time fulfill the CCPs great desire for a totally controlled and subservient workforce.
Much like the Cold war, there's a lot of scare that can be built into that. Which corporations can use to get a whole lot of sweet government and military money.
But almost everything that was held up as an existential threat to democracy in the USSR turned out to be overblown in the best case, an outright fraud or smokescreen frequently.
As we can see from the Ukraine invasion, corruption in the military and control structures follows these authoritarian regimes. China also has this problem.
China was functioning well under reduced Deng Xiaoping rulership, but Xi is a typical purge and control authoritarian, which implies bad things about China's long term economic health.
Between the authoritarianism, demographic cliff, and possibly a massive real estate/finance bomb, China will probably have to become expansionist.
But they have nuclear frenemies all on their borders: Japan (effectively), Russia, Pakistan, India. They can be blockaded from petroleum access with a single us carrier group, which will happen if they invade Taiwan and I don't think they can help themselves.
But what do I know.