Global companies like Caterpillar, General Electric, General Motors and Siemens — as well as scores of others — are making a more aggressive push into China, in some cases moving research and development centers here.
I am, personally, familiar with the movement of R&D to China. This, alone, makes me believe that this is not a flash-in-the-pan, but a genuine long term trend.
Also, as I recall the original estimate for when China would become #1 auto consumer was 2012. They beat that by 3 years. So, I would hazard a guess that it won't take them all the way to 2030 to become economy #1. What will be really interesting about that, though, is that due to population size alone, they will still have a far, far smaller per-capita income than the U.S.