Dalio is playing to an audience, he has came out loads of times and stated he isnt interested in political theory, hes only interested in the debt and its systems within the countries so he uses his model to conclude where the money is going to flow. When it comes to China and I listen to Dalio and Charlie Munger, they know the CCP can make them lots of money.
There is a lot of psychology involved when people propose or talk about economic theories, its mostly faith based (like academia). You get more of a perspective if you take it from representations and human psychology, so ask yourself this, why are we stuck in a debt-based system? most of us dont want to be in this system to we? Most cant explain how fiat is created etc so most people have these preconceptions and assumptions that are 9 times out of 10 wrong. If you tell your mates that the Banks create money out of thin air based on a contract where you are "promised to pay" ; creating the security, they wouldnt believe it because its so compelling. I have had this experience repeated to me nearly every single time when I talk about money to people, friends and family. They actually cannot believe fiat is created out of thin air, its like there is some sort of docile or obedient mechanism in their head that makes them refuse to believe its true.
If you template a country, by simply the three main things into these categories; resources, assets and debt - thats all you need to do then you get a the bigger picture. The biggest problem after this comes psychology - ownership, desire/intention and deception (people call this thing laws, but laws dont apply to the elite, so in the real this means nothing unless you are in the lower classes like us). So right away we (lower classes) are at an unequal and asymmetrical disadvantage, obviously this represents globally, so why is this?
Banks.
Banks have created issuers and users. Its a Club, its a double-accounting trick where financial securities are created based on our ignorance to accept deception being played on us. It used to be a birthright to own 5 acres of land here in the UK (I am talking about over 1,000 years ago), I believe it was called allodial title or something of the sort. Obviously "rights" were almost non-existence back (so we are lead to believe). Look at it now, most farmers are tenant farmers due to this.
It seems to me the Chinese have figured it out (from us). They smash up large corporations (obviously on CCP/Gangster rules). Jail bankers and let debt levels fall. They also stack gold. Only problem is they (Han) are state-orientated as a culture/people.
We humans are acclamatory to our own cultures - if you go out of your own country you are reminded of your own culture, not by a different set of peoples but by yourself (language and skin colour/ethnicity). This naturally comes with biases and traditions.
I know we are in the minority in the West (on this planet / indigenous caucasians) but we have had a good crack at it for thousands of years, the music will stop and I hope it doesnt come in form of nuclear war. Far too many of us in the West are too arrogant, blinded by our own prosperity and have made many enemies on the way. Far too many in English speaking countries are disillusioned with Banking propaganda and the mortgage culture - its simply not shared as much in the rest of the West. It would be legitimate if people had the birthright to own property here, but nope, its a financial security so therefore its a Bankers con.
Naturally we Westerners dont want the state to interfere in our business in any capacity, it should serve us only out of our benefit/request for needs only but history has shown its faith based/ideological. I believe in giving the people what they want (obviously within the accordance of common laws). I believe if the West supported the idea of universal birthrights of land things would change for the better - obviously things would have to be reasonable here. Financial securities seem to be a massive problem, its genuinely ridiculous how bad the financial system is on countries/peoples - its genuinely incredible. Make no mistake about it, if people worked for their basic needs without financial securities I think a lot of problems would disappear.
The Banks have to go, there is no question about it.