[dirtyid]

China has multiple generations. Even "stark" demographic collapse at PRC scale is generating millions of new births per year (several times greater than US even with immigration), there will never be shortage of bodies to fill the military, especially increasingly small force structure of modern militaries that's shifting towards autonomous platforms. As for economy, expect PRC to continue growing, more importantly, move up tech/value chain and build comprehensive national power, just like Japan did while her demographic was absolutely in the shits because JP managed to massively improve human capita via education to create the skilled workers for high value economy (also SKR, TW). For reference PRC is now outputting as much STEM talent as all OECD combined.

Like other the Asian Tigers with death spiral demographics still grew significantly simply because cohort of skilled workers increased massively even though demographics broadly declined. There's a reason PRC is rapidly moving up science and innovation indexes (controlled for quality, not just citations). The reality is, PRC demographics has never been MORE competitive, and will increasingly be, because advanced economic development phase is just getting started. Quantity of quality is in human capital is increasing at stupendous pace. Now add in PRC is adopting as much industrial robots / automation than the next 15 countries combined and that overall demographic decline (as in net population decline) only improves PRC strategic position by reducing import dependence. And that the massive regional income disparity + huge home ownership + enviable house hold savings rate = PRC elderly simply don't have significant expection (or need) for old age social support. In many ways, PRC is almost optimized for weathering demographic bomb with less social cost relative to properly developed countries that are seeing comparable demographic decline.

[eloff]

Japan's economy has been stagnant for the last thirty years[1]. China can look forward to worse by all indications so far. Upskilling their labor force won't fix that. It didn't save Japan.

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/gdp-growth-r...

[dirtyid]

>labor force won't fix

Not for JP because their skillforce potential was already relatively maxed out, their education reform paid off late in 70s while domestic politics squandered female labour participation. JP stagnanted after it tapped out demographic divident of educated/skilled work force in 80s - JP didn't have enough people / demand to upgrade what she had left to push further. Ultimately she settled in fairly prosperous status quo, but as medium sized country, also did not have sufficient internal market or requisite talent to compete across every sector.

VS PRC's recent skilled demographic explosion form 00s academic / S&T / R&D reforms that have not been fully exploited, which is the critical cohort that will build national strength. PRC has internal markets and talent pool to compete in every sector and will move up value chain accordingly. Ultimately just due to sheer amount of people, huge % of whom are lost cause, PRC will settle somewhere below JP, but still significantly higher than where it is now, likely much than US in gross/real ppp terms. Another important dynamic is PRC moving up value chain across all sectors will chip away at western economic primacy. PRC's skills driven growth trend will be slower relative to historic performance of other Tigers because even world demand was not enough to uplift 1.4B people. But that slower growth will start to directly challenge / eat lunch in sectors wealthy west dominantes. PRC may grow slow, but it merely growing will ensure west grows SLOWER if not regress.

One should expect PRC economy to grow slower and stagnate in 20-30 years, but will pull head of US, substantively in real GDP / PPP terms. All while moving up the up value chain, increasing comprehensive national power, and simulatenously erode western economies growth potential. Antcipate a future where every $1 growth in PRC hightech exports takes away 2% from west. Expect PRC industrial/trade policy sell at -$1 loss to cost west $4. JP as US vassel post war did not have the political freedom to play that game, it got Plaza'ed instead.

[ethbr0]

I read Japan's lack of growth as directly stemming from their cultural conservatism. I believe they're among the countries with the lowest immigration and least ethnic foreigners living there?

It's hard to engage economically with a diverse world when your available viewpoints are less diverse. At some point you reach a ceiling.

China has run through the Japanese hypergrowth years (leverage wage disparity, then move up value chain by producing copies of higher value items) and is now in the R&D phase. We'll see how it goes from here.