China’s integration into the global economy has created one of the most transformative economic miracles in human history. China is now basking under an age of abundance. This talk traces the origins of this transformation, summarizes the paths of China’s rise to material abundance using measures of consumption, and revisits its underlying driving forces. China’s ascendance was in essence an industrialization process with special Chinese characteristics, driven largely by a healthy and literate population living under a social arrangement of urban-rural divide, an arrangement that made China’s good labor cheap. The surplus created during this age of abundance has shown signs of depleting and the Chinese state is facing increasing fiscal challenges as this age nears its end. Rapid population aging with Chinese characteristics, persistent inequalities, and a return to political rigidity are among the major headwinds that are likely to accelerate the end of this era.