Per the four-generational-cycle theory of history, it’s about time for PRC to experience a major shift, being 73 years since the revolution.
If communism collapses in China the way it did in the former USSR 72 years after its 1917 revolution, that doesn’t mean the result will be a John Locke-kind of republic, any more than it did in Russia.
The Chinese have been ruled by autocrats since the Shang dynasty, and moreover their defining political philosopher was Confucius, not Aristotle as in the West (until the rise of Romanticism and Hegelian dialectic 200 years ago).
And one more thing: the Romans had an empire, the Mongols had an empire, the British had an empire...the Chinese have never been into far-flung empires—they had their chance in the days of Zheng He and decided against it. Admittedly they’re trying to buy up the third world, particularly Africa and South America, but I suspect that has more to do with access to natural materials than actually wanting to rule the world.
You cannot separate economic, military and ambition with the CCP. Economic and military are the two sides of the ambition coin. MODERN China considers itself the Middle Kingdom moving towards the Final Kingdom (unrivaled world domination).
Anacyclosis is the only predictor of history.