[Flatcircle]

I was interested to hear Peter Zeehan's book, "The end of the world is just the beginning." In it, he basically says China will fall apart over the next decade as the the disastrous one child policy takes effect and depletes the countries population. They are going to lose hundreds of millions of young workers and the entire country is about to become one large retiree nation with very little productivity.

[tuatoru]

1. China's military age population: https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/15-49...

2. China's old age dependency ratio, 65-plus per worker 20-64: https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/Ratios/OA...

[mardoik]

I read it too and the way he backs it up makes sense.

[dirtyid]

IMO lazy surface level analysis (per usual Zeihan).

Imagine if PRC replaced 200M farmers and un/low skilled workers with 100M skilled jobs (sci+tech, high value manufacturing, services etc) and 100M human labour equivalent of automation in agriculture and factories, while also shedding resources needed to sustain 100M bodies. The latter is a PRC with much greater productive and power potential. Here (for very coarse illustration) is how one should think about where the PRC’s demographic mix and strategic posture is trending, she's swapping one Nigeria's worth of human capital + industrial productivity with that of one Japan every 10 years, while improving potential wartime resource security.

Family planning should/needs to be reformed to smooth the curve/transition, However, One Child Policy successfully pooled developing country household income/resources to educate cohorts of only kids which has set up the PRC to have the greatest "skilled" demographic dividend in human history for future decades. Still several times more than US can born + brain drain for foreseeable future. Meanwhile shedding hundreds of millions mouths = increased autarky (energy/resource security) = more strategic flexibility. Huge % of bodies that will be shed are un/low skilled workers that drags on productivity, because bluntly PRC simply has too many useless people, so much that demographics was always more cursed than dividend. 1.4B pop was overkill for moving from farming to factory, even more so when upgrading from factory to laboratory. Reducing net population while increasing absolute skilled population will be painful but optimal demographic trends for moving up the development/value chain, building comprehensive national power, and competing in great power competition.

Yes, negotiating the net population decline is going to be a PIA socially, but PRC lack of safety net, high home ownership+savings rate, huge acquisition in industrial automation, makes her structurally and culturally well positioned to weather the drop while coming out more powerful and productive. Probably better than west can weather drama from increased population due to immigration drama and current trend in decline of QoL/welfare entitlements due to unstainable spending.

TLDR is PRC has significant room to grow in productivity and power by having absolute # of skilled/talent + automation, and having less absolute # of people increases PRC’s strategic posture. Even if the transition into that combination makes everyone very sad and stressed.

[abudabi123]

Robotic automation will have an enormous multiplier effect on the work units of Communist Party Youth. Would be interesting to know the primary author of that one child policy and the gullible decision tree in the Communist Party that fell for the argument.