Posted on 10/21/2022 6:09:30 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
China also is heading over a demographic cliff. The population has peaked, much earlier than once predicted. With a shrinking population, and a potential two-thirds reduction in working-age population by the end of the century, the PRC might not outstrip the U.S. economically. Still much poorer than America, China is rapidly growing older before it grows rich. That might become its permanent status. The PRC also is rapidly aging and suffers a dearth of women, as a result of the infamous “one-child policy,” which encouraged rural dwellers to abort or kill baby girls.
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I do, too. Despite the ‘aging population’ stuff, they have a formidable, sizeable active military force that is still viable.
The half dozen that were willing to fight were killed in a border skirmish with India. The rest will cower and cry when the violence starts for fear of their parents starving to death should they get killed.
That 1.4 Billion peaked 15 years ago - according to the latest Chinese Census. Population will drop to 700 million by 2050 - 28 years from now.
Chinese labor costs have jumped 12 fold over the last 20 years. They will never be the low cost producer of anything ever again. (that is not subsidized)
That 1.4 Billion peaked 15 years ago - according to the latest Chinese Census. Population will drop to 700 million by 2050 - 28 years from now.
Chinese labor costs have jumped 12 fold over the last 20 years. They will never be the low cost producer of anything ever again. (that is not subsidized)
There population will drop by almost half by 2050 as the old Chinese die-off has already begun. The Chinese internal market is not mature enough to support China's manufacturing based economy. So China needs a major re-structuring, and that may not be possible if the global trading system continues to degrade or if China gets hit with trading sanctions from the West.
Japan in the ‘80s and China now are completely different.
Japan militarily was a protectorate of the US and had no nukes or offensive military. China is independent, has nukes, and its air force and navy, while still mostly defensive are only a decade behind the US.
Japan is the size of Montana and has few natural resources. China is larger than the US and has substantial natural resources.
Japan had a population of about 120 million. China has a population of 1420 million, over 10 times as great.
That 1.4 billion was China's 2021 population report of their 2020 census.
Some of their most pessimistic internal estimates predict a population of 700 million by 2050, but the UN projection is for a population of approximately 1.1 billion in 2100.
So, who are you gonna believe?
Because of China's 1 child policy, and that their culture valued boys more than girls, China's current gender ratio of 15-19 year olds is 118 boys for every 100 girls.
Send those excess boys to die fighting the U.S. over Taiwan, and the balance will be restored.
“Because of China’s 1 child policy, and that their culture valued boys more than girls, China’s current gender ratio of 15-19 year olds is 118 boys for every 100 girls.
“Send those excess boys to die fighting the U.S. over Taiwan, and the balance will be restored.”
Mars needs women comes to mind. There’s women all over the world for the Chinese boys. It’s just a matter of going out and getting them.
China also has something that the modern US can only dream of—a government of, by and for Chinese ethnic people—no “affirmative action” discriminating against native Chinese.
That is a huge advantage that will be written about in history books a hundred years from now—in Chinese.
Bandow's not a neocon. He's a libertarian and something of an isolationist.
But he's become very much a part of Washington DC, and is liable to be influenced or paid off by some interest group or another.
If the demographics bomb continues to explode on China and the corruption continues look for them to lash out at Taiwan. If they are successful they will go after Vietnam, Korea and their old enemy Japan at some point. War will be their last resort to retain power.
If the US has any leadership at all when China reaches the tipping point we will stop all Chinese imports when they take military action and then watch for internal dissent and destruction in China as their economy implodes. Trouble is we have a bunch of China loving idiots in both parties, the deep state and the US military who will do everything in their power to help the communists stay in charge, yeah we are that stupid.
Will China become a global military hegemon the way that we think we are? Probably not. They are likely to play the cards they have more carefully. They won't make the mistake of trying to remake other countries against their will, but will use their economic power to get what they want from them.
Yep, blogpimp.
As the earnings from exports piled up though, they had to go somewhere. At first, they were parked in US Treasuries, but then directed to lending for domestic real estate, public infrastructure projects, and foreign lending and asset purchases of all sorts.
In Japan, the most notable result was an absurd run up in real estate prices and an extraordinary binge of marginal infrastructure projects that fed the country's politically influential building industry. For China, real estate lending and development was also especially attractive because it generated millions of jobs and, channeled through local government entities, provided lots of cash for party leaders and cadres.
Inevitably, export growth though wanes as it comes up against economic and political limits and competition from new low cost producers. Here the paths of Japan and China diverge.
After the inevitable crunch when imprudent real estate loans went bad, Japan dithered for a decade and then finally wrote off and digested the mass of bad loans and recapitalized its banks so they could begin lending again. Japan's reasonably honest bureaucracy and courts more or less fairly apportioned wins and losses, while the Japanese Diet loosened up the country's internal economic regulations so as to regain employment and economic momentum.
China will not do that because the regime is irremediably corrupt, autocratic, and anarchic in ways that Japan is not. There is no rule of law in China, only the will of the party and its determination to remain in power -- and the determination of the leadership to remain in control of the party. That is not a recipe for good public policy.
The net result of a great mass of bad real estate lending and projects is that China is having to bulldoze many thousands of badly constructed or economically useless buildings, entire suburbs and cities worth of them. A lot of public infrastructure is also little used or in poor shape and will have to be abandoned, repaired, or rebuilt.
Meanwhile, the government's often profligate lending and building will continue, even if diminished. China has trapped itself in such a system as a way to provide employment and economic growth, even if much of that growth is in make work projects that are not viable or useful in the long term.
Even worse, China is now in what economists call the middle income trap in which broad economic gains are harder to come by because the needed technology cannot be copied but must first be invented and perfected. And with demographic decline and a major gender imbalance, China will struggle even to service its existing needs.
Yes, China is a military menace to the US, but in the long term, the Chinese military will often struggle to find sufficient qualified people to man and service the weapons and platforms that they have already built. Moreover, China's often thuggish diplomacy tends to make enemies and leaves it unable to assemble a broad coalition of allies.
In a full on war with the US over Taiwan, China would soon find its military power confined to its home region, most of their foreign assets stropped away, and its domestic economy wrecked by sanctions and a blockade.
How much of that growth was within China?
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