Seven Decades Of Chinese Growth Now Bearing Fruit

The modern history of China is often a sad one, brutalised and exploited by the British Empire,
a fierce occupation by the Japanese during WW2 and a country that never fulfilled its potential until the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took over in 1949 although things never really improved under the new rulers for so long.
Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward saw tens of millions starve to death with The Cultural Revolution adding another two million to that grim toll in a bloodbath of ideological frenzy.
It was only when Mao died in 1976 that China under Deng Xiaoping began to flourish, loosening the grip of Communism and integrating into the global economy even if it never embraced Western capitalism.
In 1949, average life expectancy was 36 years and China's GDP was $30.55 billion where today, its GDP is $13.6 trillion and life expectancy is 77 years.
With each building on the successes of the previous leader towards making China the World leader, the current leader, Xi Jinping, has said that China is not changing to fit the World but the World is changing to fit China.
Military spending has increased 83% over the last decade to £170bn, the second largest in the World after the US and China has upgraded in every department of its military including it's nuclear arsenal which worries it's neighbours especially Taiwan although it has resisted becoming embroiled in any of the Western wars in places like Libya, Afghanistan and Syria and has not fought a war for over 40 years.
China's economy is second only to the US and is expected to overtake that imminently, a reason America under Donald Trump has attempted to curtail it with a trade war although Africa is where Chinese trading eyes are looking, China being one of Africa's greatest trading partners and growing at 20% per year according to consulting firm McKinsey.
As well as trade it exports expertise globally in infrastructure - especially in building roads, bridges, airports, railways, 5G internet and power stations. 
As for the World changing to fit China, Hollywood have rewritten films to show China if not in a good light then not in a bad one with one eye on the massive Chinese market and there has been a 20% rise in the UK alone of people learning Mandarin, pushed by the Government announcing plans to teach the language to school pupils.
The latest stage is an attempt to develop its image abroad with Xi Jinping developing China Global Television Network (CGTN), and expanded massively across the world, including a new hub in the UK and recruiting Western Broadcast journalists to make it appear slicker.
As 70 years of building are now bearing fruit, it will be a battle whether the West changes to fit China as Xi Jinping states or whether China will have to change, and reform, to fit in with the West and continue it's rise to the top seat.
As the UK was usurped by the US, an increasingly unpopular America run by an even more unpopular leader is being hunted down by China and could very soon find itself relegated behind an increasingly globally dominant China.