Chester A. Riley's comment may be more applicable to the economic changes occuring in China than a first glance would reveal.

Bill Mann offered an Opinion Piece in The Motley Fool yesterday, 26 October 2022, that prognosticates some serious repercussions for the Chinese economy pursuiant to the solidification of power by Xi Jinping and the rest of the Standing Committee in China. 

In Mann's opinion:  "The priorities of the state of China and the priorities of Xi Jinping are now one and the same. And unlike 40 years ago, when Deng Xiaoping launched the era of reform, spurring the Chinese economic miracle, Xi is an ideological fundamentalist who has returned the economy to its Marxist origins."

Mann goes on to opine:  "All of this means that China's growth rate in the future is likely to be much lower than it has been over the past four decades. Xi Jinping has cemented his position for the long term, and he believes that the private sector is a threat to the power of the Communist Party in China, as well as to the stability of the state. He has also stocked his Standing Committee with allies, so there is a distinct disincentive at the highest level of power in the country to contradict his wishes. 

The end result is that China is likely to have a lower rate of growth because the government's priorities of fighting inequality and environmental degradation (China currently emits more CO2 than the entire Western Hemisphere) are necessarily a drag on the economy."

Mann claims:  "No longer is the Chinese economy based upon unrestrained state-sponsored capitalism with a fig leaf of communist rule laid on top for cosmetic purposes."

Chester A. Riley might, if he agreed with Mann, have again invoked his famous one liner (What a revoltin' development THIS is!) when Mann states that Xi has "has substantially harmed the Chinese tech industry."

Well, in the final analysis Mann's opinion is just that, only one man's opinion.  (pun intended)

Hopefully, the title of Bill Mann's Op Ed will prove to be more pontification on his part than it proves to be anything resembling an accurate prognostication for the future of the Chinese economy.  The title?  

"The Inexorable Descent of China"

The Inexorable Descent of China (msn.com)