Prices in China are falling at the fastest rate in 15 years. Deflation is setting in with a vengeance. China CPI: Consumer prices fall at fastest rate in 15 years | CNN Business
Prognosis: negative. Fitch downgrades China's economic outlook, from stable to negative. Fitch downgrades China’s outlook over economic worries | CNN Business
China's economy takes another hit: this time, the annuals floods in the southern provinces. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/01/china/china-highway-collapse-kills-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/22/china/china-guangdong-floods-intl-hnk/index.html
@92gator The 2050 population data that could ruin China's century "Beijing's political ambitions are based on exaggerated economic forecasts, which are based on exaggerated demographic figures. The dire demographic outlook makes both China's economic and military goals impossible to achieve," University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Fuxian Yi told Newsweek. The U.N. forecasts China's population, now the world's third largest after India, will shrink from 1.4 billion to 1.31 billion by 2050. Yi argues that the prediction is too optimistic; he believes the population already stands at 1.3 billion and will reach about 1 billion by mid-century—if its fertility rate can stabilize at 0.8 expected births per woman.
True, but that’s not the real problem. The real problem is what despots do historically when their economies start to freefall to distract their populations.
This also doesn’t mention the fact that Chinese families prefer male offspring. I have seen projections that I believe are exaggerated that 60 percent of Chinese live births will be male by 2050.
The xenophobia of Asia also works against them here. In a sane society they could import brides from North Korea but the keep the nation pure works against this.
mix in all the unemployed young males and not enough females to match up with and...well it ain't a good recipe
No, and it’s even worse than you think. What’s one thing that tends to cure a flagging economy and an excess of young men? War.
I think that is unlikely. Women are able to work now at virtually any job, and are held in somewhat higher regard than they used to be because of that. It's still harder for a woman with an engineering degree to get an engineering job (they are more likely to be hired as plant operators), but in non-industrial jobs, I think they do a little better. Superstitions and traditions are also falling by the wayside as China gradually becomes wealthier and more sophisticated. Western companies often have women in positions of power at their sales offices in China. It's not the same as Saudi Arabia, which only recently allowed women to drive and have jobs outside the home. At its worst, I believe that the male:female ratio was 52:48, which was still a significant problem.
Wow. Eye-opening lecture. The part I found that was surprising is that Chairman Xi basically eliminated any potential competition for his job for the foreseeable future by conducting "investigations" into provincial party leaders and removing them from power, and making sure that biographies of these leaders were not published. An entire generation of political leaders has been taken out of the national picture. It could get ugly when Xi is unable to perform the job anymore or dies. A fairly scary thing for a nuclear power to have leaders come out of nowhere to seize power. That's basically how Stalin & friends came to power in Russia.
It’s on their list, the area they refer to as Outer Manchuria. But for the moment they are supporting Russia with munitions.
He is also the first leader since Mao to deliberately not have a succession plan. In the event of his untimely death, there might be quite the unhealthy leadership struggle.
I really enjoy his analysis. I follow him on tik tok. He is staunchly convinced China is screwed demographically and economically. At least that is what I have taken away from his posts. He makes a convincing argument.
I listen to his podcasts - they are usually short about 5 minutes each. He talks about a lot of geopolitical topics. My take is he sees a trend and potentially exaggerates its impact, so I take it with a grain of salt, but nonetheless the core issues he is discussing are real.
They actually were importing brides from Vietnam for quite a while. I don't know if that is still happening. The "keep the nation pure" line of thought is more prevalent among the higher and wealthier classes. If the middle class desperado can find a foreign bride that can pass as Chinese (and China is such a big place with so many ethnicities, that there is a broad concept of what is "Chinese"), then they will do it.
