"China has a long tradition of entrepreneurship and capitalism [he is referring to the past few thousand years and not the period from 1949 to 1978, when China's economy was essentially Socialist]. They have been extraordinarily successful several times in history. They are perhaps one of the few, if not the only, country in history that has been great four or five times. They had also been disastrous four or five times.
"Great Britain was great once. Rome was great once. China has been great several times. They were in decline for 300 years, until about 1978, when Deng Xiaoping said "this is not working, let's try something new" and they started over. I don't know if it's going to work out, but historically, they do have whatever it takes to become a very successful nation. And the overseas Chinese have lots of capital and expertise.
"It [China's economic future] may not work. But it's the only large country that I can see on the horizon that can dominate the 21st century."
-Jim Rogers: recent interview - CommodityOnline