One had lived half his life in England and had the air of a British intellectual about him. (He reminded me of my former coworker M.G. from England, despite the racial difference.) He said the "key question" was whether China would make moves towards being the "world police," as the USA has been for something around about seventy years now.
I said I didn't think China was interested in being world police. (This is not the same as saying China won't be. I don't think the USA was interested either in becoming a "world superpower" at all in, say, 1900 or 1910!)
I have gotten to know many young (almost all born after 1990) educated "PRC Chinese" in the past year. I don't necessarily see in them a world-imperial ambition. On the other hand, it's not so hard to imagine a global version of the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia (i.e., economic colonization).