Not sure why you are downvoted, this is pretty much spot on. The artificially low renminbi has been driving Chinese exports since the 90s and will probably cont

Not sure why you are downvoted, this is pretty much spot on. The artificially low renminbi has been driving Chinese exports since the 90s and will probably continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile the Chinese people got rapid industrialization at the cost of by and large living in polluted filth and crowded cities, and their per-capita GDP, which is a fairly good measure of the wealth of the median citizen, is still middling-to-terrible despite their high overall GDP. This has been a great deal for the western citizen, who have been exchanging tons of currency for cheap goods(thanks to the low exchange rate), especially US citizens who have had their government's borrowing costs financed by the very money sent over there to buy things with. Not so great of a deal for the average Chinese, in comparison to what they might have had as a more westernized country. Edit: Let's not even talk about the demographic collapse happening as a result of the one child policy. It will make any demographic problems in the west look like child's play.