For the last decade, we were told China’s rise to global superpower status was mathematically inevitable. We watched Jack Ma dominate the tech world, Shenzhen’s skyline explode, and high-speed rail connect the country. But we were analyzing the wrong empire.

China didn’t become a paper tiger by accident, and their current economic crisis isn’t the result of incompetence. The Chinese Communist Party deliberately dismantled its own economic miracle.

This video explores the terrifying parallels between the collapse of the USSR and modern-day China. From the $1.1 trillion execution of the Chinese tech sector and the $350 billion Evergrande real estate collapse, to 80 million empty ghost cities and a fabricated population count hiding 130 million missing citizens—China is following the Soviet playbook, page by page.

With domestic consumption dead and youth unemployment soaring, China is now flooding the West with artificially cheap exports.

But are these state-subsidized EVs and solar panels the weapon of a rising hegemon, or the desperate liquidation sale of a dying one?

VIDEO BY ECONOMIC HISTORIAN / WATCH AND SUBSCRIBE TO ECONOMIC HISTORIAN ON YOUTUBE