Chinese Economics Thread

[SAC]

Nominal GDP per capita (source Worldometers):

Rank	Country	Nominal per capita
1​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$105,280​
2​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$80,890​
3​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$80,296​
4​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$75,428​
5​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$73,233​
6​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$69,727​
7​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$61,264​
8​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$59,939​
9​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$57,545​
10​	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	$56,746​

 

[Tam]

"GDP" is a crappy and fake economic measure.

A rerun of "Friends" in Netflix would count as GDP. If I borrow lots of money, and wastefully spent it on a Ferrari, that would count as GDP. None of these would increase productivity.

Some kind of system that measure Value Produced should and needs to replace this fake measure of GDP.

 

[hashtagpls]

China should have a hungarian style baby bonus; benefits provided to Chinese families which produce more than 5 babies.

 

[localizer]

China should have a hungarian style baby bonus; benefits provided to Chinese families which produce more than 5 babies.

Nah youth have become too educated and responsible for that.

China's full of DINKs now.

It's really too late to fix this issue because China grew too fast. Best we can do is try to use automation for elder care like Japan. We will complete what the Japanese started. I'm sure all this push towards automation by the CCP took the future demographics of China into consideration. You can see this especially in areas like healthcare.

 

[kentchang]

The Chinese born between 1950 and 1970 are the ones that guided China to where it is today. Mother nature makes sure that they will fade away in the next 30 years but their absence is not required ingredient for China to reach GDP per capita with the U.S. in dollar terms.

Matching the U.S. in per capita GDP does seem a very tall mountain to climb but not inconceivable give it another 30 years. How likely was the thought China will surpass the U.S. in dollar terms in less than 30 years in 2000?

Assuming the two reaches parity in dollar terms in 2030 and the goal is to reach parity in per capita GDP by 2050, China must close the 4X difference in 20 years. For China to double its economy in 20 years takes an average of 3.5% growth rate (72 / 20). That sounds feasible given the current urbanization rate and the savings rate. To get the other 2X, we can engineer a lowering of China's PPP to 1.0 (from 2.x right now). Probably from a combination of China's CPI appreciation and USD depreciation against the CNY especially since the U.S. must inflate away its massive public debt for its economy to stay viable.

To make this scenario happen, given that China will plateau in population soon while the U.S. is still growing (through immigration), it is imperative for China to extend the retirement age, to provide an universal social safety net so people will open up their wallets, and to increase productivity through automation/education/R&D/etc. It also helps that the expected long-term decline of the USD also makes it less likely for the U.S. to weaponize SWIFT. If China plans it right, a smaller denominator in GDP divided by population size will be a blessing, not a curse.

I hope by 2050, China can have a wealth distribution like Taiwan today. See this link:

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If 'serving the people' is not just a slogan, then it doesn't matter how much wealth a government or the top 10% accumulate when there are over 200 million people in China today living on USD$5 or less a day.

Numbers like PM 2.5, forest coverage, work-to-leisure ratio, % earning spent on food (China = close to 30% while the U.S. is less than 6%), Olympic team golds, and social mobility/equality/civility are far more precious metrics than the number of billionaires or total SOE assets.

China has made unimaginable progress in the last 40 years. One general observation that has stayed true is that China's developments lag Taiwan's (or the other Asian Tiger's) by about 30 years and India lags China by about 30 years also. That suggests China in 2050 will be like Taipei, Hong Kong, or Singapore today. That would make China a very livable place and young Chinese then will be self-assured enough not to care to recite Soviet-style industrial/financial numbers or compete with other countries (e.g. "My country produced one billion tons of crude steel last year, how about yours?"). When a person or country is 'content', then one only competes with oneself.

One tangible sign that tells you that China has matured is when all these huge concrete squares in front of city/town halls are converted to public parks with trees, grass, and benches. That would be real social progress.

 

[localizer]

BTW ya'll should try the knock off legos like Lepin and Niefliz

1/3-1/4 the price for very good quality building bricks.

Kept me occupied during the pandemic when bored.

 

[KYli]

China lags behind Taiwan for 30 years is one of the most funniest things I have heard for sometime. When many Taiwanese fled Taiwan to find jobs in China and the US due to the extreme low entry wage for college students, it shows that Taiwan wealth distribution is a disaster.

One of the biggest mistakes that Hong Kong government made is to allow those green peace and environmentalists to derail Hong Kong's plans for reclamation and rezoning of parks and farmland. Due to these activists, Hong Kongers now living space is no better than a jail cell and breed poverty and social problem and resentment for youngsters.

 

[Gatekeeper]

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Let's do it by 2025

"Five years earlier"? So what's changed since the last prediction? Looks like the mishandling of the Covid crisis shorten the sur passo time then. And that's assuming there's no more shock to the U.S. economic system.

 

[Gatekeeper]

There has also been a concern/speculation that the US would abolish the GDP as a measure of the size of economy as the day approaches.

It's not totally inconceivable, the US has gradually added some measures to the GDP by taking into account of

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, for example. Other intangibles are also increasingly considered to be part of the intellectual property products (IPP) accounts. As the US is a service-based economy, there are a lot of flexibility to incorporate similar measures. In fact, there is one big account in the US GDP that Chinese ones does not consider, which is the owner's imputed rents. So if you live in your own house, and whether you pay rent or not, there is a rental cost (imputed) contributed to the GDP. Consumption spending on housing service, which includes gross rents and utilities paid by renters, as well as owners’ imputed rents and utility payments, averages about 12-13% of GDP.

Yes. I forgot about that trick. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what they say it is. The proof of the pudding is, what can the US actually spend on the real economy. Particularly stuffs like health care, welfare and most importantly for the US. The defence spending.

It's like me saying I'm on 1,000,000 per annum when I'm actually on 100,000 per annum. My spending is restricted to the later. The only thing going for the lie is borrowing. But you can only do that for so long.

@Petrolicious88

"If had to choose, I would rather China form better relations with the US in the long term".

But that's not China's choice. China always wanted good relationship with everyone. Its in her interest to do so, in order not to derail her economic development. Equally, it's in the interest of the the two powers you mentioned above to disrupt and derail China's development.

@sinophilia

It's all dick measuring contest. China is walking the walk, whilst US is talking the talk.

 

[Gatekeeper]

China should have a hungarian style baby bonus; benefits provided to Chinese families which produce more than 5 babies.

You can't be serious. China spent the best part of the past 60 years trying to reduce its population so as not to burdened it with hunger and poverty. And now you're advocating a policy guaranteed to burden China with poverty and hunger.

There is an optimum level of population. I think I read somewhere a long while ago. That China's is somewhere between 600 billion to 800 billion (don't quote me on it).

China still have a long way to go before it needs to encourage any more babies. This is why I think the policy to relax the one-child policy is a right one. But let's leave it at that for now, and maybe encourage a third child in twenty years time.