China appears to have a massive demographics problem on their horizon, largely self-inflicted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_ag...
A significant fraction of the US seems to have problem to adjust to the notion that in the next decades China will become the clear number 1 country in many fields, and the US will be to China, what Germany is to the US.(Similar on a per capita basis, about 1/4 in absolute numbers)
Wishful thinking is a terrible basis to plan.
Observe both the shape and growth trajectory of populations for America, EU, China, and other entities at: https://www.populationpyramid.net. I think a lot of countries are going to have a similar problem - it's not isolated to China. However, China's unfriendly immigration policies, combined with the very large skew in their population demographics (both age and gender) lead many to believe that there will likely be issues like the one I mentioned earlier.
Really hard to root for a country that now has a population rhomboid instead of a population pyramid. Soon to turn into an inverse pyramid aka a reverse ponzi where the old work to keep the few young alive.
The author is not a China hater - far from it. But he lays out in sobering detail the substantial demographic challenge they still face and why they may not escape what is known as at the middle income trap. If anything, I came away with the understanding that while many fear a rising China, it is a China that stumbles that can be more worrisome.
As for Rozelle, he does good work. But reality is even with deficient interior education infra, PRC is still massively overproducing talent after massive brain drain. There's record youth unemployment, again some of which is covid driven, but talent oversupply was evident pre-covid. The demographic crisis is going to be difficult to negotiate, but ultimately PRC has too manypeople, specifically undereducated older cohorts that can't be integrated into modern economy. Whatever happens PRC will be better off with 1B people than 1.4B, simply too many mouths to feed. Meanwhile there's plenty of talent to go around to build comprehensive power which more than GDP undergirds national strength. Xi/CCP's vison for "moderately prosperous society" was $10000 per capita, leadership knows PRC has too many people to reach developing country incomes. The current pipe "China dream" is $40000 per capita by 2049 (100 year anniversary) probably not realistic but still a lot of overhead to improve productivity. Likely enough to establish PRC as geopolitical superpower even with at low high income level. At end of the day, a populous country with $20000 GDP and 20 aircraft carriers is still much more powerful than a small country with $100000 GDP and none.
For example, in semiconductors, Taiwan, with a much smaller population (and arriving late in the game) beat the US, Japan and Korea. China, with 600k STEM graduates per year, is still trying to catch up.
On covid vaccines, even Russia has their own vaccine that reach mRNA levels of protection, but China is still stuck with the Covid Zero policy.
Quantity was definitively an asset for Chinese growth based on cheap labor. That source of growth is almost running dry (to the point where they are resorting to labor camps). But at some point, quantity becomes more of a liability.
Yeah entire MIC 2025 move up value chain drama that turned into tech war with US.
TW had decades of head start over PRC serious semi efforts and TBH if it wasn't for US sanctions on Fujin Jinhu, PRC would have EUV machines 3 years ago, might be on 7nm by now, and at least Huawei pre sanctions was world class in semi design. Issue is PRC needs to pursue indigenous quality now which is burden but also opportunity. TW will rely on foreign equipment forever, even though they have monopoly on some supply chains (which PRC is replicating). Shit hits the fan, TW semi can't work without foreign tech, PRC can at least cobble together indigenous 28nm and soon 14nm.
Flip side of US PRC containment policy is seriously taking MIC 2025, i.e. PRC has gap of 300k in IC talent (need 720k according to white paper), and integrated circuit major was only upgraded to first-level discipline in 2018 due to tech war. Previously private companies happy with using western equipment but now they're pursuing entire indigenous supply chain. Something TW can't do. PRC needs to master quantity (in every sector and subsector) and quality, which is much larger task but also large growth potential. Transition is in effect, entire soft tech crack down to redirect talent into hard tech. Excess talent isn't be absorbed in many fields but semi not one of them. But really apart from semi, turbojet/aviation, very high end machinery, PRC is closing gaps everywhere. It's matter of time after finally US tensions finally kicked PRC industrial policy into right priority.
>On covid vaccines, even Russia has their own vaccine that reach mRNA levels of protection, but China is still stuck with the Covid Zero policy.
Because mRNA vaccines makes very little difference. That's just triumphant mRNA propaganda wank. Traditional vax protects marginally less well for severe cases. mRNA virtue was preventing spread, which it doesn't post delta. Reality is Chinese vax is effectively as good as mRNA after booster, but covid zero is simply much better. Extrapolate current TW covid stats after they've capitulated to live with covid to PRC population and you're looking at millions of death even with mRNA. Zero Covid is power move by PRC who has strong state capacity to maintain zero covid (so far), relying on vax is capituation for those who systemically can't. The idea that mRNA would solve PRC covid problems is naive.
>Quantity was definitively an asset for Chinese growth based on cheap labor. That source of growth is almost running dry (to the point where they are resorting to labor camps). But at some point, quantity becomes more of a liability.
PRC labour is not cheap anymore. But PRC is improving both in quality and quantity as seen in export figures and value capture. They're moving up the industrial chain in many sectors. Remember meme that PRC only got $3 per iphone 3G?, it grew to $100 by iPhone X. Meanwhile anyone in manufacturing including Chinese will tell in you labour costs in PRC is becoming uncompetitive. South East Asia is much cheaper, but PRC efficient logistics still comes out ahead.
>resorting to labor camps
Alleged labour camps are poverty alleviation efforts as part of long running rural labour transfer programs. Even "coerced" labour studies by propagandist (Zenz) report payment is substantially higher than the 600M bottom tier Han living on 1000RMB a month. Most companies don't want to hire "cheap" Uyghur workers who has no language proficiency when there are plenty of Han willing to do the job for LESS. They're pressured by central gov take in Uyghurs workers for again, poverty alleviation (and yeah some Uyghurs being pressured to join these PAID programs along with reeducation). There's really no shortage of labours for the kind of low skill work they typically get thrown into. Like even the entire XJ cotton drama over Uyghurs picking cheap cotton is incongruent with fact that most of XJ cotton is mechanized and US sanctioned John Deere from selling XJ cotton pickers because no one in XPCC wants to spend the money to pay Uyghurs to pick cotton when machines are cheaper. Sidenote: ask why US refuse to sell machines that would alleviate alleged coerced cotton labour. Almost like they want PRC to continue subsidizing these manual labour jobs to perpetuate narrative of slave Uyghurs handing picking cotton. Anyway, XJ security architecture cost TRILLIONS with massive subsidies, even CCP chattle slaved every Uyghur it wouldn't be profitable. That's why they're focusing on poverty alleviation, with spectrum of reward/pressure/coersion/ strategies to get Uyghurs to particpate in uptraining, because integrating/improving XJ workforce and participation in broader PRC economy is long term better than maintaining securitization. You don't do that with the most inefficient labour camps, you do that by showing them (even if forcefully) that making life changing amounts of money is better than being impoverished coping on religion.
Source? I think big coastal cities are very advanced, but there are loads of rural villages with subsistence economies and widespread poverty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative...
Yeah, PRC income disparity is massive, 600M living on un less than 1000RMB a day. But we're talking per capita. Disparity result of Deng's entire, some get rich that resulted in two (or more) tier society, high income coastal one with a few hundred million that can compete globally, and low income interior provinces that can be arbituaged to do things other countries can't (i.e. labour intensive massive low cost infra). It's like UAE with foreign migrant labour but entirely domestic. Xi's trying to fix this with common prosperity with wealth transfers, whether that works is another question. But IMO the math is in his favor. There are so many low income people that it's not unfeasible to dramatically improve their QoL YoY with relatively little resources = party stability. Like you can double 600M on 1000rmb to 2000RMB with annual transfer of 90billion dollars (USD). PRC GDP growth last year is projected to be 900B USD. A fraction of annual growth can be titrated over years to "underclass" to maintain marginal but consistent growth that people will always feel like they're getting richer. PRC can treat common prosperity of developing provinces same way developed nations treated developing nations with aid. That's why IMO demographic problem is managable, at least in terms of stability. The wealthy coastal competitve class has so much talent to increase productivity, while the poor interior provicnes can be easily bribed. Like it's still going to be a high pressure cooker east asian life, but PRC citizen's QoL could consistent increase since base effect of productivity so low, whereas in developed western nations new generations are worse off than their parents.
They banned for-profit tutoring to bring down the cost of raising children (but also ensure children have time to be children). These services are now offered by or in-cooperation with the state school system and no-longer teach the same subjects as are taught during normal school hours. i.e they basically converted it into educational after-school day-care that is strictly non-profit.
1 child policy was replaced by 2 child policy, then 3 and finally abolished. Ironically this was only ever applied to Han Chinese, minorities like Ughyrs have always had uncapped family sizes (another massively misunderstood fact about China but getting into it would just lead to downvote brigade by people that have never even been to China).
So yeah the plan is to reduce cost of living, drive down costs of having children in particular, allow people to have as many children as they want and soon I imagine we will see direct incentives to have children.
China won’t reverse anything and their authoritarian nature will (as always) lead to ruin.
With China, we’ve seen it go both ways: Disaster under Mao and revitalization under Deng Xiaoping. What will leadership under Xi look like? Remains to be seen.
I don't know very much about him yet, but his life seems to be a fascinating one of gently guiding a failing state (that failed on epic proportions) back into normalcy and then into rapid growth.
Take away The West's (citizens) bailing out their financial markets (circa 2007 / 08) and again authoritarian ruin doesn't look so bad.
I'm not stumping for China or authoritarianism; only pointing out that it's early days and there's more to that picture than brash big brush judgements.
I'm from the west and I've never heard a defense or Chinese perspective. I understand that a lot of media we consume in the US is biased, especially on domestic issues abroad. Can you provide a link that explains the misunderstanding?
No amount of incentives have managed to push fertility rate above replacement level in any country as far as I can remember.
The data from countries like India also shows that as soon as any region experiences even moderate prosperity, birth rates drop like a rock. Heck, India’s fertility rate is now below replacement level and it happened waaay ahead of schedule.