I reject several of the premises of the article, in particular the idea that China and the western countries are independent enough from each other that their rise or fall could be seen as independent phenomenons and also the idea that China’s growth represents something that the West could emulated and that isn’t just a result of the fact that China’s population was still largely peasants at the start of that growth. It is always easier to see higher percentage growth if you start from a very low base value.
That said I am not saying China isn’t doing some things better than the west, particularly when it comes to decisive and unified action but again, a lot of that is the result of the different starting positions, if the status quo favors you already you tend to be cautious not to lose that status while risky behaviour is more likely to benefit you if you start further down. And of course it is easier to get a population to act in a unified way if you can just force them as opposed to having to convince them.