The article seemed... confused. China is predicted to surpass the US not in per-capita income/wealth, but in total economic power. China doesn't need to reach a PPP GDP/capita of $46k to surpass us, but of around $15k. China will have a very hard time reaching the US $45k.
The core macroeconomic trend is that communications is getting cheaper. We can talk to people around the world essentially for free. We can ship things pretty darned cheap. Right now, an engineer in the US makes about 10x the salary of an engineer in China or India. Unskilled labor in the US makes 40-100x unskilled labor in China and India. This is unsustainable. US workers are more productive, but not by this large a factor. Wages have to come closer to equalizing. Wages here may be a factor of 2x greater than there, due to better education, infrastructure, more natural resource, etc., but not 10x-100x greater.
This means income disparity in the US will grow, while income disparity in China and India will shrink. The wages will come closer together. With 3x the population, China will pass the US as an economic power in the not-too-distant future, and India will most likely do the same a couple of decades later.
China's government is overstated as a problem. The Chinese are, by and large, happy with its government. Government control of the internet is annoying to human rights, but doesn't impede economic progress in any way. The government errs on the side of less, rather than more, control. The core effect is that getting information on Tienanmen or Taiwan or whatever is annoying, lost in a sea of noise, and practically few people do it. It's much like getting information on the US monetary system, or how lobbyists control the government, or dozens of other issues affecting Americans. They are public scandals that no one knows about; they are not reported by the media, and the information gets lost in a sea of noise of conspiracy theories.
The core macroeconomic trend is that communications is getting cheaper. We can talk to people around the world essentially for free. We can ship things pretty darned cheap. Right now, an engineer in the US makes about 10x the salary of an engineer in China or India. Unskilled labor in the US makes 40-100x unskilled labor in China and India. This is unsustainable. US workers are more productive, but not by this large a factor. Wages have to come closer to equalizing. Wages here may be a factor of 2x greater than there, due to better education, infrastructure, more natural resource, etc., but not 10x-100x greater.
This means income disparity in the US will grow, while income disparity in China and India will shrink. The wages will come closer together. With 3x the population, China will pass the US as an economic power in the not-too-distant future, and India will most likely do the same a couple of decades later.
China's government is overstated as a problem. The Chinese are, by and large, happy with its government. Government control of the internet is annoying to human rights, but doesn't impede economic progress in any way. The government errs on the side of less, rather than more, control. The core effect is that getting information on Tienanmen or Taiwan or whatever is annoying, lost in a sea of noise, and practically few people do it. It's much like getting information on the US monetary system, or how lobbyists control the government, or dozens of other issues affecting Americans. They are public scandals that no one knows about; they are not reported by the media, and the information gets lost in a sea of noise of conspiracy theories.