-—children went from being cheap labor to expensive, noisy, furniture. Yup, they did that, to a quarter of the population. And I worry that we (US) are doing the same thing here. We’ve gone from a “chicken in every pot” to “ a cell phone in every ear”. Kids can’t be bothered to work and they spend the price of their first house to party at a school that’s teaching them nothing they can use to work with. We are in the process of losing the same generation that the chicoms are. A fine point on the chicom failure to build a consumer driven economy: They did. For the 300 million or so Hans that live in the coastal zone. But they missed the other 3/4 in the interior. The coastals are the ones who board the 100,000 buses to go home and visit the interior for chicom new year. As you note, there is no way such a split system can last for long.
One of the best things that the Boomers in the US did that many of their generation overseas didn't was to have babies. They are the Millennials. As a result the US has the healthiest demographics among the developed world. The future belongs to those who show up. We will show up.
Almost as good for us is that our southern neighbor Mexico has the healthiest demographics in the developing world. Net migration from Mexico has been negative for over ten years and is speeding up.
The problem is that they DIDN'T develop the consumer driven economy. The consumer economy that they have is what the CCP has ALLOWED. The great driver of the economy is NOT meeting the wants and needs of the people at a price they are willing and able to pay. THAT is a consumer driven economy. A full 60+% of the PRC economy is still focused on building unneeded housing & Infrastructure and goods for export that can be produced cheaper and more reliably elsewhere.
This is the big reason that I don't think the CCP can manage the decline of the PRC economy and still remain in power.
WWG1WGA
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Another take on China that may interest you:
China: Dynasties
https://www.strategypage.com/qnd/china/20231011.aspx
Excerpt:
.....Supreme leader Xi Jinping made himself “leader-for-life” and now screens or makes all key economic solutions. Xi isn’t an expert in economics or aware of the complexity of the Chinese economy or historical examples of similar situations. Back in the 1980s China adopted a market economy and shed most of its socialist (state ownership of everything) responsibilities. China was still ruled by a nationalist dictatorship government that left the economy alone and for a while that worked. There was a growing problem with corrupt CCP officials that eventually did more damage than anyone could cover up. This means that foreign investors or companies that want to move manufacturing operations to China are instead moving their existing manufacturing facilities out of China and often to smaller nearby countries that have fewer economic and political problems.
Xi Jinping hasn’t come up with a workable solution for all this yet. One reason for this lack of action is problems in the Chinese military taking up so much of his time. This is mainly about corruption, which went all the way to the top, as in the defense minister who was recently removed and replaced. It’s more difficult to deal with the many corrupt generals and admirals. All this corruption weakened the military. Finding enough honest junior officers to promote is difficult and time consuming. This is a critical situation for the CCP because Chinese soldiers and officers take an oath to defend the CCP which, in turn, is responsible for doing what must be done to rule the country effectively. After some reforms in the 1980s, the new relationship between the CCP, the military and the economy worked for a few decades until it didn’t. Crippling levels of corruption in the Chinese government, military and economy are nothing new and now the bad-old-days have returned. It requires a major political effort to turn this around and such efforts are often unachievable. Most wealthy Chinese know this and many have, at great expense, obtained foreign passports and moved some of their assets overseas as a form of insurance against another government collapse and possible civil war. That’s been the way China has worked, and malfunctioned, for thousands of years. The CCP is seen as just another dynasty that prospered for a while and then failed.
Chinese leaders pay attention to the thousands of years of Chinese history and cycles that continue to repeat.
*******
CCP dynasty fails, civil war ensues, new dynasty emerges. Given what is happening in the world would say Xi, behind the scenes, trying to steer country to avoid a civil war, but given China’s thousand years of history, may not be possible. To the Chinese this is just another cycle in their country’s history. Rinse, wash, repeat.