Why China's Rise Looked Gradual Until It Was Not: Nonlinear Regime Shifts and Observability in Geo-Economic Power

This paper examines how nonlinear regime dynamics complicate the measurement and interpretation of power shifts in international politics. Using China’s rise as a diagnostic case, it argues that standard indicators of economic, military, and technological power systematically lose informational reliability as systems move away from linear scaling regimes. The analysis distinguishes between observability, inference, and strategic intent, showing how apparent contradictions in empirical signals can arise without strategic deception or mismeasurement errors. The paper contributes a framework for understanding power transitions under conditions of structural complexity and regime nonlinearity. This is a preprint version.