4 ms·

>double digit percentage lesser than that. Estimates vary, picking a lesser estimate only reinforces my point that export driven development / manufacturing is

>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
> 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. My point is that demographic decline is not a blessing at all. Manufacturing is leaving China for all kinds of reasons, econo-demographic factors included. China had a chance to continue a much longer road on the path increasing industrialisation, but its journey seem to have ended so much earlier than anybody expected. I worked in OEM goods since around 2007, my first job. I can say that light industries in China peaked at around 2010, and been on decline ever since. I'd say there only 1/3 as much factories left in the immediate vicinity of Shenzhen as there were in 2010. The situation is not as dramatic further inland, the decline is still very visible. No robots, automation, or informatisation will save the Chinese industry, or anybody's else, and anybody saying that they will likely have zero hands-on experience with manufacturing. China ran out of cheap, and high quality labour force. Middle age people don't spend, because they save for their retirement, and as the labour force get thinner, everything get more expensive, requiring people to save even more. Business suffers from that too as much as everybody. Land prices reach extremes, skilled labour costs almost as much as in US, and you get worse, and worse workers for the same money. The promise of domestic market taking off was empty. Few of the 600M people locked away in inland China will ever manage to up themselves on the economic ladder when the ship of industrial expansion has already sailed. Most of China's poor can nor earn, nor spend. Middle class don't spend, unless on a new apartment. And higher classes do spend, but not in China, or leave the country altogether, and take their capital, and skills with them.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  I've seen your quality posts on Chinese manufacturing. I feel like you are strawmanning an argument surrounding interior development that I did not make. Industrializing the interior provinces will not uplift 600M inland to parity with coast, I never claimed otherwise. The claim is that despite 600M able to work for less than ASEAN, it's still not sufficient regardless of whether industry can be recaptured inland. In this case, lost light industry for predominantly undereducated unskilled rural labourers, for which there is no labour shortage post planned agricultural reforms. The poor will mostly remain idle/informal. Whether the ship has sailed is ultimately secondary to the fact that the ship never had such capacity in the first place. Fully developing China simply was/is/will not be possible with so many people. Hence demographic decline, in China's case is a forgone necessity, and the massive disparity between the haves / haves nots is essential in managing the transition. The end of which will situate China to better deal with a variety of issues. The blessing is the stabilized end population post decline, though far away and difficult to manage is preferable to demographic curse and uniformly unrealizable dividends due to resource constraints. It's preferable to have an unequal society where 1/2 underclass takes care of 1/2 globally competitive class. It's about as optimal for tackling demographic decline as one could hope for given Chinese geopolitical constraints, which is real and requires actual response than hypotheticals of fully automated luxury algae eating Utopia. Meanwhile, there's going to be efforts to retain manufacturing and industrial capability in particularly strategic sectors and the inertia of demographics will generate enough new human capita to maintain relative competitiveness. Metrics / indicators in the last few years suggest China share of global manufactured exports is maintaining / increasing. Automation is not a panacea, it's part of the response for competitiveness in certain sectors. Stability maintenance of the people is easier than great powers competition. The people matter, but only so much, and as component of comprehensive national power. As for journey ending earlier than expected, no one expected Trump, but pivot against China happened under Hu, so friction and competition also not unanticipated. I'm less pessimistic on prognosis of domestic consumption. Savings rate is high, real estate is a bubble, capital flight and brain drain is real. All true. IMO there's unused levers for those, though [x] doubt dual circulation. That said, 600M poor are frankly so poor that taking care of them is trivial. 1000 rmb is... so little that 600M / 40% of the population is 7% of national GDP - they can be bought off. Alternate framing, 2 years of slow 5% Chinese growth means the economy has expanded enough to take care of these people with 40% income increase. Forever. Manufacturing won't save China, less people will, the sooner the better, preferably the poor. It's ugly. Hard times are ahead. I'm rooting for algae utopia, but not holding breath.

baybal2 6y ago

> 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. My point is that demographic decline is not a blessing at all. Manufacturing is leaving China for all kinds of reasons, econo-demographic factors included. China had a chance to continue a much longer road on the path increasing industrialisation, but its journey seem to have ended so much earlier than anybody expected. I worked in OEM goods since around 2007, my first job. I can say that light industries in China peaked at around 2010, and been on decline ever since. I'd say there only 1/3 as much factories left in the immediate vicinity of Shenzhen as there were in 2010. The situation is not as dramatic further inland, the decline is still very visible. No robots, automation, or informatisation will save the Chinese industry, or anybody's else, and anybody saying that they will likely have zero hands-on experience with manufacturing. China ran out of cheap, and high quality labour force. Middle age people don't spend, because they save for their retirement, and as the labour force get thinner, everything get more expensive, requiring people to save even more. Business suffers from that too as much as everybody. Land prices reach extremes, skilled labour costs almost as much as in US, and you get worse, and worse workers for the same money. The promise of domestic market taking off was empty. Few of the 600M people locked away in inland China will ever manage to up themselves on the economic ladder when the ship of industrial expansion has already sailed. Most of China's poor can nor earn, nor spend. Middle class don't spend, unless on a new apartment. And higher classes do spend, but not in China, or leave the country altogether, and take their capital, and skills with them.

dirtyid 6y ago
I've seen your quality posts on Chinese manufacturing. I feel like you are strawmanning an argument surrounding interior development that I did not make. Industrializing the interior provinces will not uplift 600M inland to parity with coast, I never claimed otherwise. The claim is that despite 600M able to work for less than ASEAN, it's still not sufficient regardless of whether industry can be recaptured inland. In this case, lost light industry for predominantly undereducated unskilled rural labourers, for which there is no labour shortage post planned agricultural reforms. The poor will mostly remain idle/informal. Whether the ship has sailed is ultimately secondary to the fact that the ship never had such capacity in the first place. Fully developing China simply was/is/will not be possible with so many people. Hence demographic decline, in China's case is a forgone necessity, and the massive disparity between the haves / haves nots is essential in managing the transition. The end of which will situate China to better deal with a variety of issues. The blessing is the stabilized end population post decline, though far away and difficult to manage is preferable to demographic curse and uniformly unrealizable dividends due to resource constraints. It's preferable to have an unequal society where 1/2 underclass takes care of 1/2 globally competitive class. It's about as optimal for tackling demographic decline as one could hope for given Chinese geopolitical constraints, which is real and requires actual response than hypotheticals of fully automated luxury algae eating Utopia. Meanwhile, there's going to be efforts to retain manufacturing and industrial capability in particularly strategic sectors and the inertia of demographics will generate enough new human capita to maintain relative competitiveness. Metrics / indicators in the last few years suggest China share of global manufactured exports is maintaining / increasing. Automation is not a panacea, it's part of the response for competitiveness in certain sectors. Stability maintenance of the people is easier than great powers competition. The people matter, but only so much, and as component of comprehensive national power. As for journey ending earlier than expected, no one expected Trump, but pivot against China happened under Hu, so friction and competition also not unanticipated. I'm less pessimistic on prognosis of domestic consumption. Savings rate is high, real estate is a bubble, capital flight and brain drain is real. All true. IMO there's unused levers for those, though [x] doubt dual circulation. That said, 600M poor are frankly so poor that taking care of them is trivial. 1000 rmb is... so little that 600M / 40% of the population is 7% of national GDP - they can be bought off. Alternate framing, 2 years of slow 5% Chinese growth means the economy has expanded enough to take care of these people with 40% income increase. Forever. Manufacturing won't save China, less people will, the sooner the better, preferably the poor. It's ugly. Hard times are ahead. I'm rooting for algae utopia, but not holding breath.