The People’s Republic has now existed slightly longer than the Soviet Union. Does it present the same kinds of issues to the rest of the world as the USSR, and is it also doomed to implode?
No on both counts. The Soviet Union was a military and an ideological challenge for the United States. The Soviets didn’t dare use the military option against the US, and the ideological challenge faded when it became obvious to everyone, include the Soviet leaders, that communism couldn’t deliver a high quality of life for the masses. The USSR never actually built anything that wasn’t a weapon that anyone else wanted to buy, so it was never an economic threat to the US.
China, on the other hand, most assuredly is an economic rival to the US. Even if the communist regime collapsed tomorrow, the economic growth of the last 20 years would remain, and Chinese nationalism would not disappear. A dramatic political change similar to the collapse of the USSR would not, therefore, make dealing with the Chinese any easier.
The Chinese challenge is here to stay. We need to get used to it, and to figure out a way to deal with it.