China demographics thread.

[HighGround]

Malthusian ideology was predicated on the idea that humans, like locusts, would reproduce until and after they've consumed all available natural resources, causing ecological collapse, and so government policy was needed to control human populations. This was clearly false (and historically false). Yet Western think tanks continued to push the idea that over population in developing countries was the main threat to the world, convincing (especially) Chinese leaders that they should impose the one-child policy.

I know what Malthusian theory is.

It was simply the continuation of long standing white supremacist thinking that people who aren't white can't be trusted to govern themselves. Africans, Chinese, etc. can't help but breed, so they have to be stopped, etc.

Lol no. The neo-Malthusian revival of the 20th century occurred because there was in fact evidence that many countries could not feed themselves. In fact, India, one of the fastest growing countries in terms of population, was under threat of famine as late as 1980. It was only due to the general advances of the Green Revolution, and globalization of food supply chains that such a crisis was averted. Even then, several African countries suffered through famines anyway. Though that was more often down to institutional failure rather than failing agricultural policies.

 

[proelite]

I think the monthly allowance for 2 or more kids is the right direction.

To put it bluntly, China should exploit these families like how free-to-play gaming companies exploit their whales. The expectation there is that the majority of the population would be content with not paying a cent, and a small fraction of the population would pay at a rate that makes the game profitable.

The relationship would be backwards, China should expect the majority of the population to not be interested in 2 or more kids, so you encourage the ones that are open to 2 to have 4, 5, or 6. They say that 3 kids raise themselves anyways.

A family with 5 kids will receive 38400 yuan a year in income, on top of the existing tax incentives and local incentives. If the grandparents are cohabiting and the mom/dad is the sole earner, starting a large family should be a very easy decision for couples with the means and intention. 38400 yuan extra in 3rd-tier cities and villages is quite substantial, which's China's edge over the countries like South Korea, Japan, and EU etc.

Based on the 140 billion USD number allocated for this incentive this year, that's payouts to 100 million children. If this program is yearly, then this will be the largest and most expensive program ever bar an order of magnitude.

I think in a few year's time you'll see China's birthrate make a big recovery.

 

[Quan8410]

I think the monthly allowance for 2 or more kids is the right direction.

To put it bluntly, China should exploit these families like how free-to-play gaming companies exploit their whales. The expectation there is that the majority of the population would be content with not paying a cent, and a small fraction of the population would pay at a rate that makes the game profitable.

The relationship would be backwards, China should expect the majority of the population to not be interested in 2 or more kids, so you encourage the ones that are open to 2 to have 4, 5, or 6. They say that 3 kids raise themselves anyways.

A family with 5 kids will receive 38400 yuan a year in income, on top of the existing tax incentives and local incentives. If the grandparents are cohabiting and the mom/dad is the sole earner, starting a large family should be a very easy decision for couples with the means and intention. 38400 yuan extra in 3rd-tier cities and villages is quite substantial, which's China's edge over the countries like South Korea, Japan, and EU etc.

Based on the 140 billion USD number allocated for this incentive this year, that's payouts to 100 million children. If this program is yearly, then this will be the largest and most expensive program ever bar an order of magnitude.

I think in a few year's time you'll see China's birthrate make a big recovery.

Lol 5 kids require enormous dedication from parents. Raising 2 kids in China is stress enough. With 5 kids you just don't have time for yourself . It's not like in the past people could bear 10 kids so that they can have more people work on the farm.

 

[proelite]

Lol 5 kids require enormous dedication from parents. Raising 2 kids in China is stress enough. With 5 kids you just don't have time for yourself . It's not like in the past people could bear 10 kids so that they can have more people work on the farm.

The expectations is that these will be kids raised in 2nd / 3rd tier cities and with the help of grandparents and relatives. The incentive for raising more kids is the monthly salary you get for each kid minus the first born.

Even better is if there are pilot fertility towns / villages where people raise children in a communal way.

 

[Eventine]

So saying they will, is just imagination.

No, it's an educated projection; the same way you project that China will remain strong & vibrant despite demographics even though that defies common sense.

I've already sent that example back. Japan's wings were clipped by the US and this caused economic stagnation and fed into lower TFR.

They're not falling behind any poor countries with sky high TFRs, are they?

But technological growth shows an inverse relationship with TFR, in China and in the world.

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ee above on Japan.

Japan's economy is languishing. Its spirit was crushed as a conquered nation in 1945, then it was crushed again as an economically defeated nation at the Plaza Accords. The only reason anybody in Japan has the vitality to get up to do things in the morning is because of the copium they all had to suck down that the US is an ally instead of the country that bombed Japan into submission turning it from one of the most powerful and feared nations on earth into a cartoon freakshow whore house for Western entertainment. As a defeated people, lowered TFR comes with the territory.

The Plaza Accords was a set back but no single policy can explain general, whole-of-society decline. All the Plaza Accords really did was force depreciate the dollar (or conversely, force appreciate the yen, the mark, etc). It made Japanese and German exports less competitive vs. the US, but Germany dealt with that just fine - it didn't suffer three decades of stagnation. While some of that was due to policy responses, another important difference was demographics. Germany is a center of immigration within the EU, with 17% of the population in 2019 being first-generation immigrants, and nearly 30% of the population in 2021 being of recent immigrant ancestry. By contrast, Japan has almost no immigration and has to deal with its aging population on its own terms.

You're all over the place. "As high as possible," 1.7 from before, now 1.08. Where do you come up with this crap?

What part of "as high as possible" is hard to understand?

Every previous post, I told you that suggestions were far more valuable than any doomsaying. You failed every time to say something meaningful. Now, the one time I ask you an entirely different question, I get this. It's basic, it's not bad as a summary of all that was already said, but it still adds nothing.

This doesn't answer the question at all. The question is that suddenly increasing TFR takes away substantially from the speartip of the technology drive by reallocating work dedication to childrearing. Do you think we should suffer that blow now to increase TFR and potentially lose the tech war that determines global power, or do you think we can afford to keep nerding away with low TFR for another ~2-3 decades until we are well ahead of the West, then increase the TFR while coasting with far less effort to keep the lead? Seriously, just reread my last post. I don't think you understood anything at all.

China demographics thread.

It will not cost "everybody everything," because while lower TFR is global, it is not uniform. Dropping TFR amongst developed high tech nations is uniform. The only question is where they currently are. Western TFR is significantly higher than East Asian TFR, and never got as low. This is due...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

And note that this is the guaranteed mild vanilla version of what's happening. The higher stakes version is that the world is not at peace. There are wars in the Middle-East, Europe, flashpoints in the SCS and they could potentially bring about WWIII. If that happens, we need to be prepared with a technological surge to our military so we can fight it and win it, because if we lose a world-changing war from taking it easy at work to have kids, we're done for at least for another century. The TFR of militarily defeated nations goes right down to hell.

I'm saying that in 2-3 decades it will be much harder to reverse population trends than it is today, because building back up from a reproductive population that is 40% of what it is today is mathematically harder. The increased burden on social welfare due to the number of old people may very well over ride any gains from higher wealth & better technology. There is no guarantee that China will win the tech. war vs. the West in the next 2-3 decades - but there is a guarantee that China will out last the West (and certainly all of its East Asian neighbors) if it achieves superior demographics.

Do you gamble on Chinese supremacy in the next 2-3 decades or do you take the sustainable path towards long-term national power? That is the question.

 

[Quan8410]

The expectations is that these will be kids raised in 2nd / 3rd tier cities and with the help of grandparents and relatives. The incentive for raising more kids is the monthly salary you get for each kid minus the first born.

Even better is if there are pilot fertility towns / villages where people raise children in a communal way.

Oh no let the grandparents rest a bit please. They can manage with 1 or 2 child, 5 childs you are killing them. And China will continue to raise the retirement age so the grandparents will not have much time looking for grandkids.

 

[manqiangrexue]

No, it's an educated projection;

Really? How educated? I've a PhD in genetics, taught college level population genetics so I might know a thing or two about fluctuating population levels. My wife has a PhD in economics specializing in the impact of new technologies on the healthcare economy. What are your very educated qualifications?

the same way you project that China will remain strong & vibrant despite demographics even though that defies common sense.

I guess the whole world defies your "common sense." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Japan, fertility rate been shit since the US canned their economy. Tech, economy still beats the fuck out of any third world country with TRF of 5-6. Beat your "common sense" again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Plaza Accords was a set back but no single policy can explain general, whole-of-society decline. All the Plaza Accords really did was force depreciate the dollar (or conversely, force appreciate the yen, the mark, etc). It made Japanese and German exports less competitive vs. the US, but Germany dealt with that just fine - it didn't suffer three decades of stagnation. While some of that was due to policy responses, another important difference was demographics. Germany is a center of immigration within the EU, with 17% of the population in 2019 being first-generation immigrants, and nearly 30% of the population in 2021 being of recent immigrant ancestry. By contrast, Japan has almost no immigration and has to deal with its aging population on its own terms.

What is this random crap? Japan and Germany are both first world countries with low fertility. No country with high fertility is set to overtake them. Beat your "common sense" again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What part of "as high as possible" is hard to understand?

The entire part where it's total bullshit. Right now, it's as high as possible because that is the current reality. Or you mean biologically as high as possible, meaning women give birth from 13 until their can't get pregnant anymore, try to be pregnant every year reaching for ~25 babies each? Or do you mean technologically has high as possible? I have 2 kids with my wife, 1 expecting, 1 more planned. We can call the IVF clinic and tell them to unleash the Kraken and implant all 11 of our other frozen embryos. My wife can do a couple more rounds and we can aim for 40-60 kids and all just go on welfare. That's about as high as possible for us. You only think that "as high as possible" is easy to understand because your mind is too simple to comprehend the possibilities of the world.

I'm saying that in 2-3 decades it will be much harder to reverse population trends than it is today, because building back up from a reproductive population that is 40% of what it is today is mathematically harder. The increased burden on social welfare due to the number of old people may very well over ride any gains from higher wealth & better technology.

That's correct but meaningless, because
1. You can't reverse the trend right now.
2. Loss of productivity from a scramble to have kids can cause loss in the tech war or next real war, which will guarantee a demographic crisis.

There is no guarantee that China will win the tech. war vs. the West in the next 2-3 decades

So we should all just give up and go home to have as many babies as possible? You know that destroys one's ability to work hard, right?

- but there is a guarantee that China will out last the West (and certainly all of its East Asian neighbors) if it achieves superior demographics.

LOLOL So simple-mind. There is no guarantee of anything. They could all boost thier demographics and keep up. We could lose the tech war sitting home feeding babies and get crushed in a third world war. You have no idea what you're talking about. Every observation around the world from countries rich to poor shows us that your demographics freakout is unwarranted.

Do you gamble on Chinese supremacy in the next 2-3 decades or do you take the sustainable path towards long-term national power? That is the question.

Life is a gamble. So I pick gamble. Also, because the "sustainable path" is your imaginary path of forced pregnancy which you can't get anybody else to follow because it makes no sense.

 

[Eventine]

Really? How educated? I've a PhD in genetics, taught college level population genetics so I might know a thing or two about fluctuating population levels. My wife has a PhD in economics specializing in the impact of new technologies on the healthcare economy. What are your very educated qualifications?

I guess the whole world defies your "common sense." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Japan, fertility rate been shit since the US canned their economy. Tech, economy still beats the fuck out of any third world country with TRF of 5-6. Beat your "common sense" again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What is this random crap? Japan and Germany are both first world countries with low fertility. No country with high fertility is set to overtake them. Beat your "common sense" again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"Educated" as in based on quantifiable evidence and mathematical calculations; as opposed to generalizations like "Japan still beats the fuck out of any third world country with TRF of 5-6."

Yes, countries with TFR (not TRF) of 5-6 are under-developed today, because they're on the other side of the development curve. It's like comparing China in the 1960s (TFR ~6) with Japan in the 1960s (TFR ~2). Thirty years later, we saw a complete reversal of fortunes as China rode its demographic dividend to become the factory of the world, while Japan peaked, stagnated, and declined. But of course, it's not just Japan. As examples from South Korea and EU have shown, no country has been able to "keep it up."

Hell, even India today is twice the size of Japan's economy (and three times that of Germany) by GDP PPP, and India mostly squandered its opportunities for the last thirty years, having picked the wrong path towards modernization. But that's the power of population - India can fail repeatedly at policy and still end up more influential in world affairs than Japan, and that trend will only continue as India is still rising at 7-8% per year, while Japan's economy has flat lined (and so will fall further & further behind).

The entire part where it's total bullshit. Right now, it's as high as possible because that is the current reality. Or you mean biologically as high as possible, meaning women give birth from 13 until their can't get pregnant anymore, try to be pregnant every year reaching for ~25 babies each? Or do you mean technologically has high as possible? I have 2 kids with my wife, 1 expecting, 1 more planned. We can call the IVF clinic and tell them to unleash the Kraken and implant all 11 of our other frozen embryos. My wife can do a couple more rounds and we can aim for 40-60 kids and all just go on welfare. That's about as high as possible for us. You only think that "as high as possible" is easy to understand because your mind is too simple to comprehend the possibilities of the world.

Obviously, when I say "as high as possible" I mean within the reasonable constraints of what society can support with natalist policies. I don't know why this is still hard for you to understand. Stop putting up straw men maybe?

That's correct but meaningless, because
1. You can't reverse the trend right now.
2. Loss of productivity from a scramble to have kids can cause loss in the tech war or next real war, which will guarantee a demographic crisis.

So we should all just give up and go home to have as many babies as possible? You know that destroys one's ability to work hard, right?

LOLOL So simple-mind. There is no guarantee of anything. They could all boost thier demographics and keep up. We could lose the tech war sitting home feeding babies and get crushed in a third world war. You have no idea what you're talking about. Every observation around the world from countries rich to poor shows us that your demographics freakout is unwarranted.

Life is a gamble. So I pick gamble. Also, because the "sustainable path" is your imaginary path of forced pregnancy which you can't get anybody else to follow because it makes no sense.

Working a generation to death to beat the West in the technology war is a lose-lose situation. Technology competition is a marathon, not a sprint. The winner today can be the loser tomorrow - we've seen that time and time again. Even if China succeeds in beating the West in the technology race in the short-term, it won't be able to sustain it without competitive demographics.

Long-term victory is entirely about demographics. That should be obvious to a "Ph. D in population genetics" but I guess you may have slept through Evolutionary Theory. The only thing that matters for any biological organism is to survive and reproduce. And guess what, most of the world is doing a much better job at this than East Asians.

As much as it pains me to say it, we are probably living in the era of "peak East Asia." Japan is already in decline, while South Korea just hit the other side of the curve. China, the most important country in East Asia, still has about a decade of its demographic dividend left, while Vietnam and North Korea are both about ten to fifteen years behind China. You don't have to believe me; you just need to wait.

 

[Eventine]

You have no real answers on what to do except to drone on about the Western narrative of demographic collapse.

Financial incentative and government aid? Yes, that needs money. That is exactly what China is doing now. Getting wealthier so China can deal problems, demographics or otherwise.

National awareness, ideological education and "all of society" is concentrated on moving China into higher rungs of the technology ladder which in turn is what will generate wealth for China so it could deal with issues like demographics.

I have no idea what you want to do except repeat again and again the Western narrative that China is "doomed" because of demographics.

Sorry, there are 1.4B Chinese and if we can get to a per capita income of Shanghai on a national level then you are talking about a $70T GDP (by order of magitudes greater than any other country in history) that really could afford the trillions needed for incentives for births, free childcare and maternity leave for a fully engaged female work force.

China needs to concentrate on economic growth and tech first not some solution (to some senseless numbers in the far future) that is not only unaffordable today and probably ineffective but would create social fissures that can slow down or wreck the economy like forcing women to quit work to have babies or forcing families to raise children without the trillions in support needed.

Grow and advance first. Fix later when you have the money and technology. China did this with pollution. If it tried to fix pollution in 2000s, it would have cut off its best years of growth.

Demographics cannot be fixed with money and technology. Other countries have tried that and FAILED.

It requires a fundamental shift in mind set, which can only come from a drastic change in policy. This is why I said it requires courage and grit. You cannot double TFR just by throwing money, child support, etc. at people. You have to change the calculation of net opportunity cost.

A society can never offer a woman enough money to be a permanent stay-at-home mom, because what she is giving up is time, and time is priceless. Nobody with the means to pursue a career, enjoy life, etc., wants to spend their best years raising children, because raising children is perceived to be an inferior (read: less satisfying, less fulfilling, less respected) way of spending time than just about anything else short of drugs, video games, & crime.

Even having a low-paying job as a government clerk is considered more prestigious than raising five kids in today's China. A huge percentage of people would rather remain single and spend all their time & money on hand bags and video games and vacations than become fathers and mothers; and for most of these people, money is simply not the issue.

This is the reason financial incentives have failed across the board. You cannot pay people enough to give up their free time.

 

[manqiangrexue]

"Educated" as in based on quantifiable evidence and mathematical calculations;

The poorly educated can easily be fooled by demonstrably faulty evidence and calculations. The poorly educated and stupid will continue to insist that they are right after real life has proven them wrong.

as opposed to generalizations like "Japan still beats the fuck out of any third world country with TRF of 5-6."

Which is a correct statement.

Yes, countries with TFR (not TRF) of 5-6 are under-developed today, because they're on the other side of the development curve. It's like comparing China in the 1960s (TFR ~6) with Japan in the 1960s (TFR ~2). Thirty years later, we saw a complete reversal of fortunes as China rode its demographic dividend to become the factory of the world, while Japan peaked, stagnated, and declined. But of course, it's not just Japan. As examples from South Korea and EU have shown, no country has been able to "keep it up."

No. China did not transform because of our demographics; we did because of the quality of our people. There are many many countries in the world with excellent demographics and have had them for decades, but show absolutely no signs of improving into the first world. Those that do, immediately see their TFR drop.

Hell, even India today is twice the size of Japan's economy (and three times that of Germany) by GDP PPP, and India mostly squandered its opportunities for the last thirty years, having picked the wrong path towards modernization. But that's the power of population - India can fail repeatedly at policy and still end up more influential in world affairs than Japan, and that trend will only continue as India is still rising at 7-8% per year, while Japan's economy has flat lined (and so will fall further & further behind).

Being big and being technologically advanced are different. India's actually one of the countries that are making progress, much slower progress than China, but still definitely more than most third world countries. And what happened? Their TFR is going straight down, went below replacement a few years back.

Being big is an advantage and I love that China is big. But right now, it seems that no one is able to hold a high TFR while being independently technologically powerful, because the work culture required to do this is incompatible with a high TFR, especially when fighting a tech war. We can definitely trade some size for more technological investment because 50 million peasants with 5 kids each are just targets in a modern war compared to 100 elite scientists which countries like the US and Israel will go to all lengths to try to assassinate.

Obviously, when I say "as high as possible" I mean within the reasonable constraints of what society can support with natalist policies. I don't know why this is still hard for you to understand. Stop putting up straw men maybe?

Like I said before, it's hard for me to understand because my mind can explore 50 different paths while your mind can only comprehend one. So while the "go" command might seem obvious to you, it is not a valid line of instruction to me.

You don't know a number and you don't know what you're asking for. Right now, we are as high as possible given the situation and the situation is that people are incredibly invested in their careers and have no time for kids. This is not a straw man; the straw is in between your ears.

Working a generation to death to beat the West in the technology war is a lose-lose situation. Technology competition is a marathon, not a sprint. The winner today can be the loser tomorrow - we've seen that time and time again. Even if China succeeds in beating the West in the technology race in the short-term, it won't be able to sustain it without competitive demographics.

Not true. You have very poor reading comprehension. I don't want to rewrite it so I'll just copy and paste:

China demographics thread.

It will not cost "everybody everything," because while lower TFR is global, it is not uniform. Dropping TFR amongst developed high tech nations is uniform. The only question is where they currently are. Western TFR is significantly higher than East Asian TFR, and never got as low. This is due...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

"When China is the unrivaled superpower who can control the global flow of technology like the US does now, the difficulty is much lower. By then, it will not be China vs the US and the whole technologically-capable world. It may be China and half the tech world vs US and the other half. Or it may be China vs the US with the tech world largely neutral. Or it may even be China and the tech world vs the US. By the time we get there, even the US could very well have thrown in the towel and opted for total cooperation accepting that China is a more powerful country in every way. By then, we can likely truly afford to keep a tech lead while spending time taking care of 2 or more kids."

Long-term victory is entirely about demographics.

If your only goal is to stay alive, humble, harvestable, and out of everyone's way. If you want to be the best, it's about the innovative quality of the people. It's about training brilliant scientists each of whom contribute more than a million peasants for the technological force multipliers they innovate.

That should be obvious to a "Ph. D in population genetics"

This is another "educated guess" by a person uneducated on the topic, I suppose.

but I guess you may have slept through Evolutionary Theory.

Is this an educated guess or a regular one? LOL Cus it's wrong as always. Evolutionary theory says that a population and species will change and adapt to the changing ecology. Which means that the Chinese nation is shifting from a large and poor population into a smaller but highly technological and individually excellent population due to the stresses of the modern world. Did you catch that when you (pretended) you took the class?

The only thing that matters for any biological organism is to survive and reproduce. And guess what, most of the world is doing a much better job at this than East Asians, and the consequences will become more & more obvious as East Asians' share of the world population declines.

Ah... you must have googled this somewhere and now you think you can talk like an expert... LOL to an expert. This theory was taught in high school biology; you recite the theory without knowing its limitations. This is why book smarts does not equal true intellect. We're not animals out in the fields. We are sentient creatures that are smart, can innovate, and most importantly, KILL each other with those innovations. A population a million imbeciles good for nothing but breeding will be killed by a population of 100K innovators; that's how 100 million Native Americans went from owning the North American continent to owning a handful of casinos on a segregated ranch done in by Englishmen on boats with guns.

Demographics cannot be fixed with money and technology. Other countries have tried that and FAILED.

It requires a fundamental shift in mind set, which can only come from a drastic change in policy. This is why I said it requires courage and grit. You cannot double TFR just by throwing money, child support, etc. at people. You have to change the calculation of net opportunity cost.

A society can never offer a woman enough money to be a permanent stay-at-home mom, because what she is giving up is time, and time is priceless. Nobody with the means to pursue a career, enjoy life, etc., wants to spend their best years raising children, because raising children is perceived to be an inferior (read: less satisfying, less fulfilling, less respected) way of spending time than just about anything else short of drugs, video games, & crime.

Even having a low-paying job as a government clerk is considered more prestigious than raising five kids in today's China. A huge percentage of people would rather remain single and spend all their time & money on hand bags and video games and vacations than become fathers and mothers; and for most of these people, money is simply not the issue.

This is the reason financial incentives have failed across the board. You cannot pay people enough to give up their free time.

First of all, myself and many others have aready said that it's a cultural change for the TFR. Not your original idea. We've also went further to discuss how to change that culture and which factors would be helpful/antagonistic. Secondly, and now you've realized the evolution of the Chinese population and people. Given all that, that you know nobody will follow your course, what are you still chimping out about?