And I'm not talking in economic terms. China will experience two crucial generational shifts in leadership over the next two decades, both of which will ease it in the direction of allowing more political pluralism.

The thing is, China cannot forever suffer a single-party state simply because it needs a government that isn't afraid of it's own citizenry and it's increasingly complex demands. As a nation's huge middle class continues to emerge over the next couple of decades, china's single party system will have do deal with increasing complicated and changing demands. Ruling over a vast poor country is easy, because all the poor want from government is protection from their circumstances. Ruling over rich city-states within such a system is also equally easy, because all the rich want from their government is protection from the Poor. But the growing middle class? it wants protection from uncertainty - the future. The middle class has achieved it's decent standard of living and wants to pass it on to their children. They're also becoming increasingly educated and accomplished. By the time the so-called sixth generation reaches its political apogee in 2022, expect the communist party to be closely and deeply divided between the more cosmopolitan coastal faction and more conservative interior faction. We're already seeing this type of division in China today.

As for Russia, they're not a full-blown democracy, but it's not a total authoritarian regime either. It wasn't too long ago that Russia's experience with democracy almost turned the country into a failed state. But that's another discussion, we're kind of getting off topic here.