Chinese Democracy has the potential to sell more records than AFD simply bcuz of the anticipation and magnitude of guns n roses and the album. i think the guns n roses fans from 87-93 era will buy it, also gnr have made new fans since then with also the help from touring in 2001-02/2006-07 who will buy it and also other people will buy it purely to see what the hype is about and bcuz its Guns N Roses!
however, illegal downloads will probably fuck up the sales of the album and we will never truely know!