Well, the "50 years" claim is simply not true, the whole lifting out of poverty thing started with the opening up and the influx of foreign investment to use ch

Well, the "50 years" claim is simply not true, the whole lifting out of poverty thing started with the opening up and the influx of foreign investment to use cheap Chinese labour after Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978. Before that, the Chinese leadership under Mao were doing their best to drive all of China into poverty and famine. Have you ever been to China? I've lived in China over for 10 years until 2011, and it has always baffled me how so many foreigners were saying that China will be the economic superpower of the 21st century, and all I saw was a nation of poorly educated people with a cult of money, lack of any kind of moral compass and rampant corruption deeply embedded into the fabric of society. To be fair, it also had more or less developed infrastructure and lots of cheap labor that has made manufacturing in China profitable for international companies. I was trying to be positive and kept repeating the "in China it's different, they have a special Chinese way" mantra. Well, now the Chinese economy has now been exposed as the pyramid scheme it has always been and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I see your claim that "the standard of living will change" as absolutely laughable, as any people who are capable of changing that are busy getting out of China, ideally forever. Whoever is left only stays to reinforce the status quo. Whoever was saying that "China is the future" in 2006 was at best a naive optimist. Whoever is saying that in 2016 is delusional.