TBF very simple (not easy, but anticipated) structural problem: currently PRC ~5 years into ~20 year period where the intersection of cohort from when PRC had h

TBF very simple (not easy, but anticipated) structural problem: currently PRC ~5 years into ~20 year period where the intersection of cohort from when PRC had higher TFR - was generating 15m+ new borns while simultaneously massively expanding tertiary capacity and enrollment (single digit to 60% and increasing). Unsurprisingly (and again anticipated when scale of academic reforms was being proposed) sought after air conditioned office jobs hasn't kept pace to frankly stupendous tertiary expansion, meanwhile tuition doesn't drive PRC student into crippling debt, and parents have high savings % to doddle kids who can afford to fuck around. Broad unemployment is steady ~5% - sooner or later youth will enter workforce doing less desirable jobs when they realize they're not tier1 material. Same with all the ones now chillaxing in tier2+ cities, not everyone makes the grind in NYC either. West simply had to deal with academic inflation earlier and culture have already learned to live with paper degrees. If one followed the domestic/elite debate 30 years ago (project 211/985), it was exceedingly obvious CCP decided it was more useful to max out the dial to brrrrt teritary talent generation even if it means eventual talent oversupply and opportunity mismatch. At end of the day, more useful to have excess talent where top minds are discovered and coordinated, then not. Teritiary talent can fail back to delivering DiDi, but undereducated DiDi driver not going to work in fabs. Still given PRC youth unemployment rates, the % employed is still integrating ~2-3x more STEM workforce per year vs US (excluding non STEM technical fields). They have massive relative youth unemployment, but massive absolute youth employment that has closed the STEM/technical #s with US in last decade, and set to lead for decade(s). Like if current trend/ratio continues, PRC set to add 40M stem in next 20 years, about as much US projected to gain population total (births + immigration). The talent:opportunity gap will eventually close since new cohorts moving from 15m new birth years to 9 million (and declining) new births, i.e. if PRC keep pace with high skilled job generation (difficult), they'll eventually experience (skilled) talent shortage, but by then they may well have OECD combined in high end talent in the workforce. There isn't going to be rustication, unless you count mediocre people realizing they're doomed to mediocre work in mediocre location rustication. And ultimately, that's what all the developing tier2/3+ cities and interior provinces is about, why CCP was lolling at all the naive (western) urbanists trying to convince them to increase tier1 density to increase productivity and follow zipf scaling. CCP solution is to tell people NYC is full, but here, we build multiple NYC alternatives, with comparable amenities, slower pace for the mediocre/mids (not meant to disparage but mere statistic reality), but you'll end up making 1/2 the money but have same or better QoL because local PPP is scaled accordingly. They're not moving people to the countryside, they're moving people to other world class cities.