China’s autocratic President Xi Jinping has been reported many times as believing that America is in terminal decline. This has encouraged him to double down on his ideological belief that socialism will somehow prove superior to market-led economies.

If it does, it would be a singular one-off, as experience, particularly the 1989 implosion of the Soviet Union and the failing states of Cuba and Venezuela, has demonstrated conclusively that command and control simply does not work as it is not able to respond to market changes, let alone popular needs.