he's clearly, uh, not just, you know, out for his own interests, but he's going to play a really important role in China's rise to, uh, economic and cultural dominance.View on YouTube
As of late 2025, China has not yet achieved the clear global economic and cultural dominance implied in the prediction. In nominal GDP, the United States remains the world's largest economy (about $29.2T in 2024) ahead of China (about $18.7T).(databank.worldbank.org) Some PPP-based estimates put China's total output above that of the US, but this reflects size rather than overall dominance of the global financial system, where the US dollar and US capital markets still play the central role.(worldeconomics.com)
On the cultural/soft-power side, Brand Finance's Global Soft Power Index 2024 and 2025 rank the US first in soft power worldwide, with China rising to third in 2024 and second in 2025 but still clearly behind the US.(brandfinance.com) That is consistent with a China that is gaining influence but not yet the dominant global cultural power.
Since 2022, Russia under Putin has indeed deepened its partnership with China: they announced a 'no-limits' relationship in February 2022, have expanded long‑term oil and gas deals, and pushed bilateral trade to record highs of roughly $240–245 billion in 2023–2024, with Russia becoming China's largest crude oil supplier.(news.cgtn.com) Analysts generally describe this as an unequal partnership in which China holds the dominant position and Russia has become heavily dependent on Chinese markets and technology, rather than a relationship in which Russia is a primary driver of China's rise.(cnbc.com)
So far, the observable facts are: (1) China is a rising but not yet dominant economic and cultural power globally, and (2) Russia has become an important energy and trade partner for China but with limited evidence that it is 'playing a really important role' in making China the dominant global power. Because the prediction does not specify a time horizon beyond 'the coming years' and the underlying structural question (whether China will ultimately become the dominant economic and cultural power with Russia as a key enabler) remains unresolved, it is too early to definitively label the prediction as right or wrong.