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>replace the retired population Why replace anyone? The alternative is to ramp down to a lower population baseline and deal with the transition. 800M Chinese b

>replace the retired population Why replace anyone? The alternative is to ramp down to a lower population baseline and deal with the transition. 800M Chinese by 2100 is still plenty. Reality is right now there's 100s of million undereducated/undertrained Chinese who can't be integrated into modern economy - they're net drains. And even current system is struggling to employ millions of STEM graduates. PRC doesn't need immigration, just clamp down on top level brain drain and setup foreign worker program to take care of the aging - plenty of cheap ASEAN labour. Bonus side effect of less people = more self sufficiency and freedom to conduct assertive foreign policy. There's few upsides to maintaining and trying to increase living standards of 1.4B people with PRC resources.

adventured 5y ago
That's the correct answer. I never cease to be astounded that so many people don't seem to grasp that you can increase output per capita, productivity per capita, as the population contracts. The focus should be on improving the quality of life of the people, not on expanding the economy in absolute terms. China would be better off with 1/2 the people at the same GDP (ie ~700m people at ~$24,000 per capita GDP). Population contraction is desirable in many cases, so long as you can continue to increase productivity per capita. China has a long ways to go yet in terms of potential to raise their per capita economic output, if they're willing to pair that with a contracting population. And the lightening (from depopulation) on their resource needs is a huge help, it makes their situation so much easier.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  As the population ages, will older people be able to retire? In that case their productivity transforms to a negative, needing to be supported by the remaining workers.
  - adventured 5y ago
    China's output per capita is so mediocre (~$12k GDP per capita) there is a lot of room to outrun the worker contraction and retirement context. Although I'm skeptical their increasingly rigid economy, courtesy of Xi transporting them back in time to a worse system of stricter command & control (vs a more liberalized approach), will be capable of it. Their productivity doesn't transform into a negative. To deal with more aged persons, they need to bolster output and taxation on that output, such that society builds a social safety net for the retired. China has room for increased taxation on various aspects of wealth and income in their nation (their wealth has ballooned massively in the last 10-20 years obviously), along with higher personal income tax rates in general. Increasing productivity and automation frees labor to be devoted to other things that society needs. For example their farming system is very ineffecient, they have far too many people working in farming producing far too little (compare it to the US, South Korea or Japan). If you bring that up to where it should be, some of that labor becomes available to take care of the elderly, paid for via taxes. Now apply that to everything else in China that still needs modernized, made more efficient, automated.
    - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
      This very much depends on the ratio of retirees to workers. Also automation may not play out so well for Chinese production, as it's more sensible for other nations to bring automated manufacturing onshore for a combination of reasons including reduced transport, supply chain certainty, stabler internal economics. Onshoring automated manufacturing could still use a significant amount of international remote labour, but the hosting country would capture more of the taxation from the manufacturing, which you mention as going to pay for the Chinese retirees.

adventured 5y ago

That's the correct answer. I never cease to be astounded that so many people don't seem to grasp that you can increase output per capita, productivity per capita, as the population contracts. The focus should be on improving the quality of life of the people, not on expanding the economy in absolute terms. China would be better off with 1/2 the people at the same GDP (ie ~700m people at ~$24,000 per capita GDP). Population contraction is desirable in many cases, so long as you can continue to increase productivity per capita. China has a long ways to go yet in terms of potential to raise their per capita economic output, if they're willing to pair that with a contracting population. And the lightening (from depopulation) on their resource needs is a huge help, it makes their situation so much easier.

hackerfromthefu 5y ago
As the population ages, will older people be able to retire? In that case their productivity transforms to a negative, needing to be supported by the remaining workers.
- adventured 5y ago
  China's output per capita is so mediocre (~$12k GDP per capita) there is a lot of room to outrun the worker contraction and retirement context. Although I'm skeptical their increasingly rigid economy, courtesy of Xi transporting them back in time to a worse system of stricter command & control (vs a more liberalized approach), will be capable of it. Their productivity doesn't transform into a negative. To deal with more aged persons, they need to bolster output and taxation on that output, such that society builds a social safety net for the retired. China has room for increased taxation on various aspects of wealth and income in their nation (their wealth has ballooned massively in the last 10-20 years obviously), along with higher personal income tax rates in general. Increasing productivity and automation frees labor to be devoted to other things that society needs. For example their farming system is very ineffecient, they have far too many people working in farming producing far too little (compare it to the US, South Korea or Japan). If you bring that up to where it should be, some of that labor becomes available to take care of the elderly, paid for via taxes. Now apply that to everything else in China that still needs modernized, made more efficient, automated.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    This very much depends on the ratio of retirees to workers. Also automation may not play out so well for Chinese production, as it's more sensible for other nations to bring automated manufacturing onshore for a combination of reasons including reduced transport, supply chain certainty, stabler internal economics. Onshoring automated manufacturing could still use a significant amount of international remote labour, but the hosting country would capture more of the taxation from the manufacturing, which you mention as going to pay for the Chinese retirees.