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>So China’s power will decrease a little bit due to aging. But not a huge amount. A shrinking, graying population is likely to alter the country’s domestic poli

>So China’s power will decrease a little bit due to aging. But not a huge amount. A shrinking, graying population is likely to alter the country’s domestic politics — in ways that are hard to predict — but it won’t make the country shrivel up and disappear. I've long maintained that Chinese demographic bomb is overplayed and is actually a blessing in disguise. Some considerations: Birthrate of 1.4B people is sufficient to generate more absolute replacement human capital compared to most developing countries, even factoring in immigration. For comparison China has more people than OECD countries combined. This is important in cultivating future competitiveness as long as brain drain is blunted. It's enough to retain advantages for regional power balance. There are still 600M Chinese living on less than 1000rmb per month. This represents a massive internal underclass that can be arbitraged for caretaking and other labour intensive duties for a fraction of the cost. China is both a developed and developing country, this is an advantage that is not going to change until population decline stabilizes. Or rather China cannot be uniformly well/highly developed precisely due to there being too many people. Which leads to the next point. At the height of Chinese export economy, manufacturing sector "only" accounted for 400M jobs. There was also less automation then. The takeaway is world demand is not sufficient to uplift even a majority of Chinese population to barely middle income status. There simply isn't enough global demand or resources for every Chinese to live as well as the west. Manufacturing is increasingly automated, China is rapidly integrating industrial robots to retain industrial base. Even when those 600M can work wages cheaper than Vietnam or Bangladesh. Pending focus on neglected interior development, maybe they will at the expense of rest of region trying to replicate export led development. A lot of issues related to food, energy and resource security would be alleviated with less people. Despite import dependencies, China is also one of the largest domestic producer for many raw resources. A relatively food and energy secure China can start pursuing more flexible foreign policy goals in the 2070s. None of this is to imply it's not a difficult problem, especially socially. But unlike many countries, long term Chinese goals is better met with less people. Demographic dividend can be a demographic curse as well. See India, who needs to (and hasn't) maintained an 8% growth per year just to keep up with employment. Technological paradigms and geopolitics dictates they won't get a fraction of the 400M manufacturing jobs that China did. They're projected to have 1.7B people. That's a recipe for disaster.

baybal2 6y ago
Lets tear your argument to pieces: > At the height of Chinese export economy, manufacturing sector "only" accounted for 400M jobs. Based on highly doubtful statistics, and methodology. It might have been a double digit percentage lesser than that. > There was also less automation then. The total ratio of labour per output of light industry for lion share of goods did not change since eighties. > The takeaway is world demand is not sufficient to uplift even a majority of Chinese population to barely middle income status. This is the sole ultimately true point. > There simply isn't enough global demand or resources for every Chinese to live as well as the west. A moot point with resources. We have enough of pretty much everything as extraction technologies improve. The only natural resource we may ran out soon is wood..., ammusingly a largely renewable one. > Manufacturing is increasingly automated, No > China is rapidly integrating industrial robots to retain industrial base. No > Even when those 600M can work wages cheaper than Vietnam or Bangladesh. Pending focus on neglected interior development, maybe they will at the expense of rest of region trying to replicate export led development. Again, no. Chinese establishment don't give a flying .... about those 600M Chinese in inland provinces. Why would they? Why should they? They didn't even at the time when the digit was a double of that. And the Chinese business, it has largely no interest working with middle age, expensive to train, and largely unruly social bottom feeder workforce. They will rather go where they can get prime rib workforce for cheap. They need malleable young workers who are well schooled, trained, have low demands, no family to feed, no health issues, and are cream of the crop of their part of the social ladder. And yes, they need them in tonnes, and rock bottom prices on top of that. China largely ran out of high quality factory employable workforce.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  >double digit percentage lesser than that. Estimates vary, picking a lesser estimate only reinforces my point that export driven development / manufacturing is simply not enough for China -> too many people. > output since the 80s Ditto. >sole ultimately true point. You're reinforcing my argument is tearing into it how specifically. The broad point is China has too many people for current development models. Unless you think my argument is something else. > A moot point with resources. On that matter what is your argument exactly? That things will be fine because science will solve all roadblocks? You may subscribe to future tech + earth can support 100 Billion Ecumenopolis in your other comment, but I do not. At analysing hypothetical trends in the next 50 years, which itself is a shitshow, but needn't enter scifi wank territory. If your argument is the world can technically support 1T algae eating people comfortably without an actual road map for such transition then why bother obsessing minutae of individual statistics when your hypothetical outlook is a handwave. >no / no Normalize robots per 10k worker metric, China has more industrial robots than Japan, US, SK, Germany combined. Most of this growth was last few years. > don't give a flying, why would they? They haven't given a flying historically, these regions were neglected, only so much political focus and direction to go around. Hence "pending" and whether they actually deliver on interior development pivots that's being hinted at this year. You don't think the fact that Chinese literacy rate exceeds most in the region while 600M interior poor who are already subsisting on rock bottom prices, a pool comparable to size of entire ASEAN, is a useless potential workforce? By your own admission the sector employs less than official statistics, are all 600M and their offsprings useless dregs? Are Chinese businesses all of a sudden not beholden to CCP industrial policies? Do state run enterprises not have massively wasteful job creation components already purely for stability maintenance. All I posited is "maybe" CCP will actually give a shit about long neglected interior development, they don't have to, but if it's establishment policy, business will fall in line. And if they don't, that's manageable too. Those 600M / 40% of the population can be bought off perpetually with 7% GDP, a few years of slow growth. Worst case they'll languish as underclass to support the demographic transition.

baybal2 6y ago

Lets tear your argument to pieces: > At the height of Chinese export economy, manufacturing sector "only" accounted for 400M jobs. Based on highly doubtful statistics, and methodology. It might have been a double digit percentage lesser than that. > There was also less automation then. The total ratio of labour per output of light industry for lion share of goods did not change since eighties. > The takeaway is world demand is not sufficient to uplift even a majority of Chinese population to barely middle income status. This is the sole ultimately true point. > There simply isn't enough global demand or resources for every Chinese to live as well as the west. A moot point with resources. We have enough of pretty much everything as extraction technologies improve. The only natural resource we may ran out soon is wood..., ammusingly a largely renewable one. > Manufacturing is increasingly automated, No > China is rapidly integrating industrial robots to retain industrial base. No > Even when those 600M can work wages cheaper than Vietnam or Bangladesh. Pending focus on neglected interior development, maybe they will at the expense of rest of region trying to replicate export led development. Again, no. Chinese establishment don't give a flying .... about those 600M Chinese in inland provinces. Why would they? Why should they? They didn't even at the time when the digit was a double of that. And the Chinese business, it has largely no interest working with middle age, expensive to train, and largely unruly social bottom feeder workforce. They will rather go where they can get prime rib workforce for cheap. They need malleable young workers who are well schooled, trained, have low demands, no family to feed, no health issues, and are cream of the crop of their part of the social ladder. And yes, they need them in tonnes, and rock bottom prices on top of that. China largely ran out of high quality factory employable workforce.

dirtyid 6y ago
>double digit percentage lesser than that. Estimates vary, picking a lesser estimate only reinforces my point that export driven development / manufacturing is simply not enough for China -> too many people. > output since the 80s Ditto. >sole ultimately true point. You're reinforcing my argument is tearing into it how specifically. The broad point is China has too many people for current development models. Unless you think my argument is something else. > A moot point with resources. On that matter what is your argument exactly? That things will be fine because science will solve all roadblocks? You may subscribe to future tech + earth can support 100 Billion Ecumenopolis in your other comment, but I do not. At analysing hypothetical trends in the next 50 years, which itself is a shitshow, but needn't enter scifi wank territory. If your argument is the world can technically support 1T algae eating people comfortably without an actual road map for such transition then why bother obsessing minutae of individual statistics when your hypothetical outlook is a handwave. >no / no Normalize robots per 10k worker metric, China has more industrial robots than Japan, US, SK, Germany combined. Most of this growth was last few years. > don't give a flying, why would they? They haven't given a flying historically, these regions were neglected, only so much political focus and direction to go around. Hence "pending" and whether they actually deliver on interior development pivots that's being hinted at this year. You don't think the fact that Chinese literacy rate exceeds most in the region while 600M interior poor who are already subsisting on rock bottom prices, a pool comparable to size of entire ASEAN, is a useless potential workforce? By your own admission the sector employs less than official statistics, are all 600M and their offsprings useless dregs? Are Chinese businesses all of a sudden not beholden to CCP industrial policies? Do state run enterprises not have massively wasteful job creation components already purely for stability maintenance. All I posited is "maybe" CCP will actually give a shit about long neglected interior development, they don't have to, but if it's establishment policy, business will fall in line. And if they don't, that's manageable too. Those 600M / 40% of the population can be bought off perpetually with 7% GDP, a few years of slow growth. Worst case they'll languish as underclass to support the demographic transition.