2050 is OK date for me. I should be pushing daisies by then.
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- 31 years from now. I’ll be in my 70s. Whatever happens, I hope it doesn’t make me too cranky.
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Yes.
Korea first, China later.
Or maybe Eritrea first …
Then they would need to invade in order to get women. 
I was reding that for example the tariffs on soy imported from US are not affecting China that much because the pigs, that ate like a quater of the imports, are dying out due to African swine fever. So this is not working as¨"punishment" and it is drawing US further into debt, as the government has to subsidize the US farmers´s losses. Same with meat, China just started buying more from Argentina and Australia. So it seems unless it is something big from within, thinsg are going peachy and they can weather rough seas.
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Due to difficult geography and the inherent lack of cultural unity in mainland China, the government has to struggle to maintain control. The Government’s economic policy boils down to: use economic growth as a carrot to placate the population. Take away the carrot and people become dissatisfied with the government and without jobs people have more free time to hang out in Tiananmen Square.
Why will the economy collapse? Many reasons. First, China’s growth-at-all-costs mentality lead them to cut corners. The Government directs funding to any projects that will employ people, even if they aren’t profitable. Companies use fraudulent accounting to hide the losses and everyone turns a blind eye because the whole financial system is run by the government. If China can’t keep this scheme going with cheap credit for any reason, the whole house of cards will collapse.
Secondly, China’s growth miracle relies on access to Western markets, particularly the USA’s. The relationship is not reciprocal. The US could cut trade to China and would eventually recover like nothing ever happened. That would permanently end China’s growth party.
Thirdly, China’s One-Child policy was basically a demographic time bomb. The financial system will dry up when hordes of elderly people have no more income to invest after retirement and start spending down their savings. The younger generation will be too small to replace the lost savings, and the government will be taking in less tax revenue too, so it won’t be able to pump up the system. Pair this with reason number one and it’ll be a fun party.
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This part is their biggest issue. The other two I’m not convinced bout . The first one is a non issue especially.
China also has a massive internal market . Certainly the trade war could hurt it badly though .
Some locals are quite despondent over the state of things. One person’s children are making more money in the mainland than they could do here.
He tells me the climate in relation to regulation for small businesses here in Taiwan is not friendly compared to a few years ago.
I was surprised to hear this attitude. I’ll probe more.
Common story . If you move from small town to big city…Emigrants story.
Any thoughts on timing?
Maybe once elder care becomes more of a thing and there are less jobs around.
When China was 100% commie shit, they had to enforce the 1-child policy because, breaking news, communism doesn’t work and it can’t sustain a growing population in the long term.
They transitioned from real communism to a mix between oligarchy* and socialism, with the commie party permanently in control, and the state trying to control the economy (and own/control major businesses/services) while allowing private property. They no longer need the 1-child bullshit, but it’s still not a long term viable system.
They still have plenty of room for improvement though, but in order to do so they’d have to give up all the state controlled crap. The current commie party is definitely not going to do it, but in the future who knows? No one expected the Soviet Union to implode that quickly and peacefully. I think that would be the best scenario for the Chinese people, allowing each region to become autonomous. Sure, Beijing people would be butthurt as fuck, we waz kingz and shit, but whatever.
*= oligarchy tends to refer to few people in control. The commie part cannot really be described as “few people”, but compared to the insane amount of population i think it could fit the definition.
…which is why them Chinese people are told day and night that they have to hear what the Party states, that the Chinese people are not ready nor want to rule themselves, and that Taiwan style democracy is chaos. Which it is, but at least it is fun.
Which democracy isn’t? All democracies have checks and balances and internal debate.
Everything is rosy in a dictatorship until it isn’t but then there’s nothing to stop them.
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Exactly. It is not normal not to have debates, different points of view. Heck, even fights among legislators. that means they care.
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If when you say
you mean the period of 1949 to ~1979, your theory is impossible, because the 1CP started after that. (It couldn’t have started while Mao was still around, because he told the people to be fruitful and multiply.)
China was still pretty commie after Mao.
Tiananmen shooting-fish-in-a-barrel event happened in 1989.
It’s not really chaos, never been any coup here. Peaceful changes of power.
I would call it robust politics.
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If the HKSAR’s example is anything to go by, it will never happen!
HKSAR has been transitioning from 1C2S to 1C1.5S since 2012 and inevitably arriving at 1C1S is foregone conclusion, fait accompli.
At least Taiwan has democracy whereby the HKSAR none or facadism.
They call it chaos. I call it the human condition of dialogue and diversity. Not a single brick mentality imposed on all.