I agree that any system that fails to provide growth is in a certain amount of danger. For what it's worth, I try to remain objective in appraising China's situ

I agree that any system that fails to provide growth is in a certain amount of danger. For what it's worth, I try to remain objective in appraising China's situation; I'm not exactly delighted with them, but I try to avoid being actively disgusted, or at least to avoid letting my disgust get in the way of my appraisal of the situation. I continue to think, though, that "postmodern authoritarianism" (my phrase, but I'm sure it's been coined elsewhere) is more vulnerable than most other systems of government, because the whole implicit promise involved here is that the people will sacrifice certain desiderata in exchange for certain others. When a medieval state failed to provide prosperity to its people, they weren't happy and often became restive, but the damage was mitigated by its being the judgment of God; when the United States faced extreme difficulties in the Great Depression, the rate of crime went down, not up (with some obvious fedora-wearing exceptions), as most of the population was loyal to itself and saw the government as an extension of itself; when Imperial Japan instituted strict rationing and drafted large numbers of soldiers in the Second World War, their credibility was not at risk at all, since all these were sacrifices for a cause, for the will of Amaterasu. But a postmodern authoritarianism doesn't have a reason for its citizens to remain loyal, it doesn't have a higher goal for them to work for, and it doesn't have an external cause (or an external enemy: I didn't mention the Nazis above, but I could have) to be blamed for its problems. Its whole social contract is "give up on certain freedoms and you'll be rich!", so when that's no longer the case, the government is in trouble. In fairness, though, this may not be the case in China as much as in Russia. The United Russia party's platform has been more or less explicitly this: "let us stay in power and we'll restore the prosperity, military might, and international prestige of Russia." Communist China doesn't really have a "platform" of this sort, especially now that they're "CINOs" (Communists In Name Only) in the post-Deng Xiaoping era; so economic failures might not discredit them as much or as quickly, but, on the other hand, they're still not going to have much of a flag to rally around.