China wont become a superpower until the turn of the century. Few reasons:
1. Social inequality: China has huge social inequality, urban poverty etc Even central China has lots of poverty. Despite the spectacular job done by the Chinese govt, in reducing poverty from 85% in 1980 to 16% in 2005, and despite all the infrastructure build up, China still has only a "medium" level rating on the Human Development Index scale. Whereas the United States has a "very high" rating. China is only a tad above India in this respect.
2. Political environment: Today in order to become a superpower, you need clout. China does not have this clout that the United States enjoys. Part of the reason is its own political system , which is a hindrance.
3.Military Strength: I dont even need to speak about it. China is a green water navy. While the United States is a complete blue water navy with Supercarriers, and building hypercarriers as we speak. China has just bought its 2nd hand Carrier from Russia. The Chinese air force has almost a 1000 outdated planes out of their fleet strength of about 2000, which is almost 50%. So China on a technological level is quite behind the United States, by almost 20 or 30 years.
So China will be close behind the United States in terms of "superpower" status, but wont challenge it directly, even if it becomes the largest economy in the world by 2050.
