China demographics thread.

[Eventine]

Coming back to topic, I always feel a gradual decline of China's population is no cause for concern. It's not whether China can churn our STEM workers. My concern is whether the economy can absorb the influx of them. If it can't, many of them will work in other countries.

It's not about whether it declines but whether it declines relative to the rest of the world. If the entire world has a TFR of 1.2, and China does also, it is not a cause for concern. But if China's main economic competitors have a TFR of 1.9 and China has a TFR of 0.9, that will become a huge problem in a generation as they will have a larger market, labor force, etc.

There are ways you can mitigate the effect, of course. But great powers always have a comparable population and territory relative to their competitors. Germany was the second largest country in Europe before World War 1, and it was allied with Austria-Hungary, which was the third largest country in Europe. This is one reason it was so hard for the rest of Europe - outside of Russia / USSR, which was the biggest country - to stand up to Germany once it properly industrialized, and why defeating the Nazis required the combined efforts of the US and the USSR, both themselves larger than Germany.

The bottom line is this - strong demographics give policy makers more tools and options to create wealth and success. While weak demographics limit the range of policies available. Countries like Japan and South Korea pretty much can only rely on maintaining a technological and qualitative edge over other countries and liberal trade policies to export their way to wealth. If global trade were to shut down, they'd be screwed; if they lose the technology race to China, they'd be screwed. So trust me, policy makers in Japan and South Korea are not sleeping well right now.

 

[Gloire_bb]

I believe there is one exception, Poland.

Mid-late XIXth century onwards, with process continuing through the XXth century.

 

[Serb]

It's not about whether it declines but whether it declines relative to the rest of the world. If the entire world has a TFR of 1.2, and China does also, it is not a cause for concern. But if China's main economic competitors have a TFR of 1.9 and China has a TFR of 0.9, that will become a huge problem in a generation as they will have a larger market, labor force, etc.

There are ways you can mitigate the effect, of course. But great powers always have a comparable population and territory relative to their competitors. Germany was the second largest country in Europe before World War 1, and it was allied with Austria-Hungary, which was the third largest country in Europe. This is one reason it was so hard for the rest of Europe - outside of Russia / USSR, which was the biggest country - to stand up to Germany once it properly industrialized, and why defeating the Nazis required the combined efforts of the US and the USSR, both themselves larger than Germany.

The bottom line is this - strong demographics give policy makers more tools and options to create wealth and success. While weak demographics limit the range of policies available. Countries like Japan and South Korea pretty much can only rely on maintaining a technological and qualitative edge over other countries and liberal trade policies to export their way to wealth. If global trade were to shut down, they'd be screwed; if they lose the technology race to China, they'd be screwed. So trust me, policy makers in Japan and South Korea are not sleeping well right now.

No, Chinese "main competitors", have TFR of 1.3 (Japan) and 0.7 (South Korea), 1.6 (Germany, but with a mass of lower-quality immigrants) so China, is in a way better position there.

And countries like India, for example, are not Chinese competitors, they are African competitors, despite the more distant geography. I'm talking about the structure of the economy/society.

If Japan and South Korea magically found ways, for example, to massively increase their TFR overnight, then your argument would've made sense, and I would've been worried for China.

But, India and Africa for example could have a "gazillion" of people, but the quality of their population wouldn't have allowed them to industrialize and modernize like China, it would make it even harder for them, hence, most likely, they would remain overcrowded rural poor societies forever the more people there are.

And this is not factoring also that China's current STEM workforce still has to quadruple by 2050, in a few decades, and become >RoW, still before stopping growing, unlike Japan and South Korea, and Western countries peaking already. By the time China actually "peaks", it will probably be unchallenged hyperpower.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1673150462810537984

 

[Eventine]

India may never reach the productivity per capita of China, but India's position relative to China will still improve due to better demographics. The current balance is with even population. If India is twice the size of China in population, the balance will inevitably shift in their favor as it means an Indian can be half as productive as a Chinese and still get away with it.

I know that is hard to accept since the leading narrative here has been that East Asians are of a special breed/culture. But remember, that's what whites thought of themselves, as well, before the rise of East Asia.

 

[resistance]

India may never reach the productivity per capita of China, but India's position relative to China will still improve due to better demographics. The current balance is with even population. If India is twice the size of China in population, the balance will inevitably shift in their favor.

I know that is hard to accept since the leading narrative here has been that East Asians are of a special breed/culture. But remember, that's what whites thought of themselves, as well, before the rise of East Asia.

In the era of robotics and automation, Having an increased in population is disadvantage. The population will reach limit of carrying capacity which will cause famines. The demographics you should care is STEM demographics only, other pop doesn't matter.

 

[Serb]

but India's position relative to China will still improve due to better demographics.

Position, in what way? They could be more Jai Hind and cocky on social media?

Indian can be 50% less productive as a Chinese and still get away with it.

An Indian is currently 6 times less productive than a Chinese (basic GDP per capita), 5 times in electricity generation, 6 times in global manufacturing share, and 5-6 times in gross exports less productive too.

These are all some kind of productivity-related numbers and they could be easily seen on a per capita basis as both countries have roughly equal total population sizes now, so just use the gross numbers and see the differences.

And I actually predict all those advantages to possibly increase to 10-20 times, in every category above, in Chinese favor as urbanization, tertiary gross enrolment ratio, and shift from a blue-collar workforce into a university-educated workforce in China finishes in a few decades.

That means that India would need to have 10 billion or 20 billion people for your "quantity" Mickey Mouse logic to start making sense.

And you forget that only 40% of the present-day entity called India speaks Hindi (80% of China speaks Mandarin for example), and they were never historically known to be particularly so unified, unlike China.

Who knows what future such an entity holds, when they are so full of internal differences? So, then, it is likely that the 10-20 billion people they need to even hypothetically compete with China some day might eventually just divide into smaller countries and go their separate ways.

So, not only is the innate quality of the population there infinitely closer to Africa, than to China and other East Asians, but internal differences are also like they are some kind of a continent, instead of a single, homogenous, unitary, and historically stable nation as China for example.

Btw, those per capita multiplies in the economy, from above, could also be observed in various educational metrics, scientific metrics, and technology metrics, between the two countries. Everywhere you look you would see the same wide spread between India and China.

So, no, I'm not "racist", I don't have anything for East Asians against Indians, I'm just talking about objective easily observable facts out there.

In every category and measurement you look at, in existence, you see the same thing (the same wide spread in achievements), but this particular Tweet made me realize the true difference for the first time a few months ago:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1713095621375373492

 

[Eventine]

In the era of robotics and automation, Having an increased in population is disadvantage. The population will reach limit of carrying capacity which will cause famines. The demographics you should care is STEM demographics only, other pop doesn't matter.

So Japan and South Korea thought - both invested heavily in robotics and automation in order to "beat the demographics cliff." Yet, as their demographics collapsed, their economies stagnated. Turns out, demographic collapse affects every aspect of society - not just manual labor; and in fact, it affects the highly educated, STEM demographics much more so since educated women are even less likely to reproduce.

So, not only is the innate quality of the population there infinitely closer to Africa, than to China and other East Asians, but internal differences are also like they are some kind of a continent, instead of a single, homogenous, unitary, and historically stable nation as China for example.

Btw, those per capita multiplies in the economy, from above, could also be observed in various educational metrics, scientific metrics, and technology metrics, between the two countries. Everywhere you look you would see the same wide spread between India and China.

So, no, I'm not "racist", I don't have anything for East Asians against Indians, I'm just talking about objective easily observable facts out there.

In every category and measurement you look at, in existence, you see the same thing (the same wide spread in achievements), but this particular Tweet made me realize the true difference for the first time a few months ago:

If you took a snap shot of those metrics for China in 1950, when its GDP per capita was 1/5th that of Zimbabwe, I'm sure you'd have arrived at a similar conclusion regarding Chinese - that the "innate quality of the population" is "even worse than Africa's." I mean, when your population is 90% illiterate, it's kind of easy to make that argument, and so it's no wonder Europeans and Americans at the time thought other races were racially inferior and incapable of self-rule.

But look at the difference 75 years makes? That's barely three generations. If China could turn it around in three generations, who are you to say that no other country can? After all, China remained a basket case far longer than Japan did - Japan in the early 20th century was already an industrial power house and it had <1/10th the population, territory, and resources of Qing China. Countries develop at different speeds and with different strategies; just because India failed to take advantage of the same opportunities China did, does not mean it won't eventually get there - after all, the same exact argument of "we did it, why couldn't they despite having more resources? must be because they're racially inferior" was made by Japan towards China and was what they used to justify their invasion & occupation of Chinese territory.

 

[Michaelsinodef]

Imo the biggest reason for the success of East Asian countries is not due to some genetic or inherit trait. By putting it down to a race thing you're discounting generations of toiling by the ruling class to homogenise the populace. In almost every instance that there are successes, the minority have been so severely suppressed that now the opposite policies are used just so they don't get completely assimilated.

Historically Chinese conquest of new territory from the days of the Qin Dynasty has been the standardise or die route, by thoroughly crushing ethnic minorities and forcing them into a general "Chinese" race, modern China is able to not waste any of the national resources on race wars or tribal conflict, which severely saps the country's vitality.

India is not the only example of this inability to manage ethnic tensions, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar and much of the middle east falls prey to this trap, even worse when they immigrate to foreign countries, they bring this ethnic conflict with them which becomes headaches for the host countries, as seen in five eyes countries and their tension with India.

More influential than race, is culture and history.

Like culture and history >>...>> race.

 

[Serb]

So Japan and South Korea thought - both invested heavily in robotics and automation in order to "beat the demographics cliff." Yet, as their demographics collapsed, their economies stagnated. Turns out, demographic collapse affects every aspect of society - not just manual labor; and in fact, it affects the highly educated, STEM demographics much more so since educated women are even less likely to reproduce.


If you took a snap shot of those metrics for China in 1950, when its GDP per capita was 1/5th that of Zimbabwe, I'm sure you'd have arrived at a similar conclusion regarding Chinese - that the "innate quality of the population" is "even worse than Africa's." I mean, when your population is 90% illiterate, it's kind of easy to make that argument, and so it's no wonder Europeans and Americans at the time thought other races were racially inferior and incapable of self-rule.

But look at the difference 75 years makes? That's barely three generations. If China could turn it around in three generations, who are you to say that no other country can? After all, China remained a basket case far longer than Japan did - Japan in the early 20th century was already an industrial power house and it had <1/10th the population, territory, and resources of Qing China. Countries develop at different speeds and with different strategies; just because India failed to take advantage of the same opportunities China did, does not mean it won't eventually get there - after all, the same exact argument of "we did it, why couldn't they despite having more resources? must be because they're racially inferior" was made by Japan towards China and was what they used to justify their invasion & occupation of Chinese territory.

I'm arriving at conclusions based on available evidence. When you show me how the Indian gap with China started narrowing, as opposed to widening (even though China already picked most of the low-hanging fruit, whereas India isn't), I'm happy to change my opinion. You are just speaking about what could happen, not what is happening.

Also when China consolidated for the first time, it started growing much faster relatively than India was growing during similar periods during their developmental cycle.

In 1960, China and India had a $90 GDP per capita. Fast forward to 2022, China had $12,720, whereas India had $2,411 and the gap is widening.

What you argue this time is, I suppose, that India still didn't "figure their shit out" as China did some time after the civil war ended, but I see no actual evidence for that.

Where is your evidence that India figured, or is about to figure their shit out? Under Modi, the GDP per capita of 10 years behind China fell to 16 years behind China (also despite much sharper population growth then, which was your first argument). India is not getting more unified as a nation, on all levels, they are not changing their horrible political system, their manufacturing and export global shares stagnate, etc. Be real!

 

[Michaelsinodef]

So Japan and South Korea thought - both invested heavily in robotics and automation in order to "beat the demographics cliff." Yet, as their demographics collapsed, their economies stagnated. Turns out, demographic collapse affects every aspect of society - not just manual labor; and in fact, it affects the highly educated, STEM demographics much more so since educated women are even less likely to reproduce.


If you took a snap shot of those metrics for China in 1950, when its GDP per capita was 1/5th that of Zimbabwe, I'm sure you'd have arrived at a similar conclusion regarding Chinese - that the "innate quality of the population" is "even worse than Africa's." I mean, when your population is 90% illiterate, it's kind of easy to make that argument, and so it's no wonder Europeans and Americans at the time thought other races were racially inferior and incapable of self-rule.

But look at the difference 75 years makes? That's barely three generations. If China could turn it around in three generations, who are you to say that no other country can? After all, China remained a basket case far longer than Japan did - Japan in the early 20th century was already an industrial power house and it had <1/10th the population, territory, and resources of Qing China. Countries develop at different speeds and with different strategies; just because India failed to take advantage of the same opportunities China did, does not mean it won't eventually get there - after all, the same exact argument of "we did it, why couldn't they despite having more resources? must be because they're racially inferior" was made by Japan towards China and was what they used to justify their invasion & occupation of Chinese territory.

China was able to turn it around because it got led by a ML (marxist-leninst), that not only could rather competently plan (and also adjust plans on the fly), but also execute those plans (not to mention also quite science based).

India currently does NOT have that ability (might lay plans, but really not able to fulfil them lol), and won't have it until it gets BIG structural changes/reforms, which really aren't coming lol (in fact, civil war or break up like USSR is way more likely lol).
No, it's not gonna happen under Modi (while Hindu believer might be a majority, but there's still like 20%+ of other believers, not to mention, Hindu religion is actually a somewhat recent construct under british rule that combined a lot of smaller religions. Just look at current day Christian/Muslim/Jewish religions and their internal fighting and do people really think that Hindu can avoid that lol?).

Not to mention the various areas in India that wants to break away, along with coming challenges of climate change + current/future manifacturing (heavily automated, won't need as much low-skilled/low-educated manual labor) etc.