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Comment by RickS | Hacker News Reader

This is the china of "let it rot"[1] and a housing market so f'd that people felt pressure to buy and pay for houses that didn't even exist yet, leading to a massive mortgage boycott[2] in protest of all the resultant shenanigans? They're already failing to keep up the growth[3], their population pyramid projections are pretty bleak going forward.

I agree with you re the need to convince modern western voters of an (actual) abundant future, but china seems like they're not doing so hot either.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mortgage_boycott

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_China

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All of the above is completely true.

But right now they are in the acute/fallout phase of a massive economic disruption (the deleveraging of a highly indebted real estate sector, no less severe than the GFC, they overbuilt to a massive degree). No matter what folks are going to be struggling bad atm.

The trillion dollar question is what does this look like in ten years? It could go either way. A Japan style lost decade, or they manage to find and exploit new growth opportunities. I guess we'll see whether having pretty much the cheapest energy on the planet and impressive logistics allows them to get through this.

Do not discount the tremendous potential of electrification, and cheap renewable energy.

China's population is already declining, and that decline is accelerating. They are projected to lose 100M people by 2050, and 500M by 2075. Given their aversion to immigration, demand will continue to plummet for those unoccupied properties. This is clearly the end of their property boom. This was one of the last options left to ordinary Chinese to build wealth. Their stock market is little more than a slot machine.

It is encouraging what we see with their EV boom, but a car industry alone cannot sustain a nation with declining population levels. China has sold so few technological innovations over the decades that I do not see them innovating their way out of this.

We are all rapidly aging and pretty much no-one is bringing in anywhere near enough net contributing migrants to offset this.

What the immigration argument overlooks is domestic migration, particularly urbanization. It's zero sum for sure and rural communities will be hollowed out but I think there's a real possibility that they'll be able to soak up much of the excess capacity in the coming decade.

Urbanization massively increases productivity, reduces infrastructure costs etc. There's a real economic beauty to scale. Downside it suppresses fertility even further.

Elder care will be a real nightmare though, but the Chinese elders are willing to accept far more modest conditions and outcomes than their western counterparts. Confucian values for better or worse really help here.

It could go either way at this point.

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