Comment by azernik | Hacker News Reader

Comment by azernik | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Because China has a few long-term problems it's trying to grow its way out of:

* A baby bust left over from the introduction of the one-child policy, at which point its dependency ratio will skyrocket to levels unmatched in any other industrialized country. One phrasing I've heard is that China needs to get rich before it gets old

* Environmental damage that takes money to reverse (that is, to reverse while maintaining living standards). Environmental damage in the sense of damage to the urban environment that industrial workers live in, not just to wilderness areas - unbreathable air, toxic rivers, etc.

* A large rural population whose urbanization is unstoppable, and whose urbanization needs to be supported by jobs and housing to avoid the kind of slums you see in e.g. Brazil or Nigeria and attendant civil disorder. Which brings us to:

* An autocratic political system whose popular legitimacy is built on economic growth, and whose popularity will (in the eyes of the people running it) collapse if it can't deliver truly spectacular economic results.

Environmental damage that takes money to reverse (that is, to reverse while maintaining living standards). Environmental damage in the sense of damage to the urban environment that industrial workers live in, not just to wilderness areas - unbreathable air, toxic rivers, etc.

It’s also a matter of being able to grow enough food for 1.3 billion people, and in the absence of that, experience extreme dependency on foreign sources of food. Part of that is down to local pollution and mismanagement, but part of it also a matter of global climate change and desertification. It’s hard to be a superpower if you depend on your geopolitical opponents to feed you.

Reminds me of how the Soviet Union having to import simple wheat

To add to that cheerful thought, the Saudis are in serious trouble too politically, as their oil runs out.

So is Japan, as its population ages.

So is the US. So is Europe, although arguably to a lesser extent.

There's a possibility we're in for a perfect storm where a lot of very bad things happen all at once financially, just when we need to be spending money to mitigate climate change.

I understand anther part is, they can't afford to have unemployment either, especially in the restive uighur and Tibet regions.

Having millions of unemployed young men, without a political channel to air their grievances would surely spell trouble for the regime there...

Freakonomics has a chapter about the Romanian government being overthrown approximately 20 years after abortion was outlawed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com