Fall of Xi's empire? China's new silk road may lead to USSR-like collapse

Grand investment plans for unproductive regions have caused empires to founder before

What causes empires to fall?

According to one influential view, it’s ultimately a question of investment. Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become over-extended, the splurge of spending to sustain a strategic edge leaves more productive parts of the economy starved of capital, leading to inevitable decline.

That should be a worrying prospect for China, a would-be great power whose current phase of growth is associated with an increasingly aggressive military posture and a tsunami of capital spending in its strategic neighbourhood.

Like the Soviet Union in the 1970s, China is