Chinese Economics Thread

[manqiangrexue]

The biggest issue is the low birth rates. It needs to be between 15 to 20 million births per year. Numbers released for 2023 was 9 million births. You can’t have a declining population.

Married couples are having children. But marriage rates have declined. Therefore the birth rates have declined with it.

Subsidies and other incentives need to be introduced in a much larger scale. Give advantages to women that have children. More children they have, the more advantages they get. The advantages need to be significant.

Robots and automation will solve the labour supply shortages but it’s the demand side that is the problem. You need humans to buy goods and services provided by companies. Robots don’t buy home appliances, phones, cars, furniture, travel, etc.

If the marriage rates increase, you will see birth rates increase. I believe the declining marriage rates has been the biggest cause.

Why can't you have a declining population? Just for demand? You know one person can consume more or less, right? Having less people consume more is called increasing living standards.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

The biggest issue is the low birth rates. It needs to be between 15 to 20 million births per year.

You arrived at this range of numbers how, exactly? Your what "it needs to be" needs to be revised because it isn't happening.

Robots and automation will solve the labour supply shortages but it’s the demand side that is the problem. You need humans to buy goods and services provided by companies. Robots don’t buy home appliances, phones, cars, furniture, travel, etc.

You're wrong for two important reasons. The first was pointed out already: people's incomes can grow. The population can decline by 20% and incomes rise by 200%. Governments can spend on any number of things: defense, welfare, infrastructure, industrial subsidies, research, etc. Economies are always supply constrained, you can only consume what's been produced.

Yes, people will only ever need so many washing machines, but you can make things other than washing machines. Needing more people so they can make and buy more washing machines is how you get stuck in the middle income trap.

The second and more subtle reason is that some economic activity doesn't have a source of final demand. There are closed loops in the economy, especially the industrial economy, and they're very important. For example, you mine iron to make excavators to mine more iron. Another more pertinent loop is making chips to put in computers to write EDA software to make more chips. There's no "final consumer" in any of these loops, every consumer is a producer for another node and vice versa.

 

[MixedReality]

Why can't you have a declining population? Just for demand? You know one person can consume more or less, right? Having less people consume more is called increasing living standards.

China’s advantage is the scale of its population. Singapore has a very high living standard but it’s not a global power. Population size is everything.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

China’s advantage is the scale of its population. Singapore has a very high living standard but it’s not a global power. Population size is everything.

The US is a global power, in some respects more so than China, with less than a quarter of the population. How come? India's population is slightly larger than China's but it's not a global power in any real sense. How come?

 

[MixedReality]

You arrived at this range of numbers how, exactly? Your what "it needs to be" needs to be revised because it isn't happening.

You're wrong for two important reasons. The first was pointed out already: people's incomes can grow. The population can decline by 20% and incomes rise by 200%. Governments can spend on any number of things: defense, welfare, infrastructure, industrial subsidies, research, etc. Economies are always supply constrained, you can only consume what's been produced.

Yes, people will only ever need so many washing machines, but you can make things other than washing machines. Needing more people so they can make and buy more washing machines is how you get stuck in the middle income trap.

The second and more subtle reason is that some economic activity doesn't have a source of final demand. There are closed loops in the economy, especially the industrial economy, and they're very important. For example, you mine iron to make excavators to mine more iron. Another more pertinent loop is making chips to put in computers to write EDA software to make more chips. There's no "final consumer" in any of these loops, every consumer is a producer for another node and vice versa.

15 to 20 million births has been the range over the past 20 years. Births were 9.02 million and deaths were 11.1 million in 2023. 2 million decline in population.

 

[manqiangrexue]

China’s advantage is the scale of its population. Singapore has a very high living standard but it’s not a global power. Population size is everything.

Oh, man, that's all you have to argue with?? Chinese people are the highest academic achievers and the most influential group of scientists in almost every field and you still think that all we have is population?? We're the best, one-on-one; our only disadvantage was low starting point. Population was "everything" when China was too poor to have quality. Even then, India's weakness shows us that population is not everything. For decades, Chinese power was an insect compared to American's despite the vast population differences but as they converge and China grows 5-10x faster than the US, it is NOT because China's population is increasing at that speed; as a matter of fact, it has been slower than America's population growth even as the economy and technology improved much quicker. That's because China improved the the quality of the people, making them more educated so they can produce higher tech goods. This can easily overcome a population decline. China with 900B people can be a country almost 3X more powerful than the US, NOT a country that is 60% as strong as an older more populated China. Singapore doesn't have any aspirations other than quality of life; its comfortable existent is based on not coming into conflict with anyone. Singapore is irrelevant.

 

[MixedReality]

The US is a global power, in some respects more so than China, with less than a quarter of the population. How come? India's population is slightly larger than China's but it's not a global power in any real sense. How come?

When living standards are similar, population size determines global power. US and Australian living standards are similar but one is 330 million people and the other is 25 million people. Australia won’t get twice as rich as the US as both are fully developed countries.

 

[MixedReality]

Oh, man, that's all you have to argue with?? Chinese people are the highest academic achievers and the most influential group of scientists in almost every field and you still think that all we have is population?? We're the best, one-on-one; our only disadvantage was low starting point. Population was "everything" when China was too poor to have quality. Even then, India's weakness shows us that population is not everything. For decades, Chinese power was an insect compared to American's despite the vast population differences but as they converge and China grows 5-10x faster than the US, it is NOT because China's population is increasing at that speed; as a matter of fact, it has been slower than America's population growth even as the economy and technology improved much quicker. That's because China improved the the quality of the people, making them more educated so they can produce higher tech goods. This can easily overcome a population decline. China with 900B people can be a country almost 3X more powerful than the US, NOT a country that is 60% as strong as an older more populated China. Singapore doesn't have any aspirations other than quality of life; its comfortable existent is based on not coming into conflict with anyone. Singapore is irrelevant.

CPC don’t think it’s a good idea to have a shrinking population. I agree with the CPC.

 

[antiterror13]

1. Oh no, China has too many unemployed youth!
2. Oh no, China's population is getting old so there's not enough young people to work.

This actually shows that China's economy is moving to machine labor fast enough to offset any population decline. Unlike the US, China's youth unemployment stems from too many educated people qualified for higher ranking oppertunities unwilling to do menial labor unless their livelihoods depended on it (or with menial labor saturated by the less educated). America's youth unemployment is centered in people just not wanting to work at all and the economy not providing any jobs that are easy and lucrative enough to change their minds.

Actually in the US, the employment data is based on number of unemployed people actively looking for a job and exclude the ones not actively looking for a job. So, I am not sure whether the same criteria also the same in China?

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

When living standards are similar, population size determines global power.

That's not what you said. You said

China’s advantage is the scale of its population. Singapore has a very high living standard but it’s not a global power. Population size is everything.

You said population size is everything. Now it's "when living standards are similar." Pick a position.

By the way, only one of China's many advantages is the scale of its population. Much more important advantages are its governance, the unity of this population in addition to its size, its mammoth industrial sector, its infrastructure, its capacity to develop advanced technology, etc.