Well, China is already "the past". They're past the Lewis turning point. We'll have to look somewhere else for "the future".
German Climate scientists are claiming with 98% statistical certainty that warming has accelerated significantly since 2015, and believe we are looking at 3°C of warming by 2050, 5°C by the end of the century. That does not bode well for the future of anything.
https://www.dpg-physik.de/veroeffentlichungen/publikationen/...
If China is declining more slowly than the rest of the world, that's still relative progress.