Cultural attitudes and integration issues aside, there's a huge hurdle nobody's discussing: the language barrier.
Chinese Economics Thread
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this was already how it kind of worked in the 1990's and early 2000's. rural students had boarding school from middle school onwards. that was what freed up parents to work as migrant workers.
this has changed in recent years. the era of significant migrant labor is drawing to a close as many of the migrants are now retiring on the supply side and demand for workers in construction and manufacturing is slowing down due to advances in technology.
most children are picked up from school now.
A lot of it could be handled by translation software which is getting scary good. Bigger issue might be cultural.
That's fine for a tourist, "Can you take me here? How much for a ticket? Etc." You're not going through a professional career with translation software.
Importing immigrants to solve a TFR problem is the equivalent of taking pain killers to treat a wound.
End of the day, you're not addressing the bleeding.
It's ironic, really. Nations with healthy TFR are actually the best positioned to absorb immigrants - as the native demographic base is improving, importing (a reasonable amount) of foreigners does not fundamentally change the underlying distribution. It's a win-win situation.
But nations with unhealthy TFR and a falling population will find it difficult to absorb immigrants, because any substantial amount of immigration will impact the underlying demographic distribution and exacerbate ethnic tensions - the smaller pie effect.
This is precisely the issue facing the US, today, as native born TFR has been persistently under ~1.5, while immigrants tend to be young and fertile, so any amount of immigration changes the fundamental distribution of the US population, fueling the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory and in turn, the power of the MAGA movement and the rise of obergruppenfuhrer Stephen Miller.
China should be very, very careful about what it does next. Falling TFR is dangerous for a nation, falling TFR + immigration even more so.
End of the day, you're not addressing the bleeding.
It's ironic, really. Nations with healthy TFR are actually the best positioned to absorb immigrants - as the native demographic base is improving, importing (a reasonable amount) of foreigners does not fundamentally change the underlying distribution. It's a win-win situation.
But nations with unhealthy TFR and a falling population will find it difficult to absorb immigrants, because any substantial amount of immigration will impact the underlying demographic distribution and exacerbate ethnic tensions - the smaller pie effect.
This is precisely the issue facing the US, today, as native born TFR has been persistently under ~1.5, while immigrants tend to be young and fertile, so any amount of immigration changes the fundamental distribution of the US population, fueling the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory and in turn, the power of the MAGA movement and the rise of obergruppenfuhrer Stephen Miller.
China should be very, very careful about what it does next. Falling TFR is dangerous for a nation, falling TFR + immigration even more so.
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Any thoughts on China's ? This could indicate that China's GDP, at purchasing power parity, is severely understated. No way are prices 80% of those in Hong Kong.
This is what it would look like if you play with the share of HK's price level.
This is what it would look like if you play with the share of HK's price level.
China price level (share of HK) | PPP GDP per capita (intl $) | Change vs 29,000 |
|---|---|---|
70% | ≈ 33,143 | +14.3% |
60% | ≈ 38,667 | +33.3% |
50% | ≈ 46,400 | +60.0% |
Both of you are correct in different ways. China should probably start laying the groundwork for a real merit based migration program due to aforementioned demographic issues, they could probably also ease spousal visa's for foreign wives due to the male female inbalance, although any form of real mass migration to the extent of Australia/Canada or even the US is kind of impractical not even considering the societal implications, US gets about 0.3% of its population growth through migration every year and over 1-2% in Aus/Canada, that would require anywhere between 8-30 million migrants every year to China which is arguably even logistically and economically impossible. Nonetheless i think its fine for China to accept in a couple thousand highly qualified Indian scientists/researchers every year.
The infrastructure is not in place for migration. Immigration isn't just about opening the border. There has to be both controls and opportunities.
Controls: there has to be a way to track immigrants without depending on their cooperation. The current method is self reporting of address. There must be a national database. But how to get a national database of different ID numbers, passports, etc?
Opportunity: immigrants should be issued ID cards with all the rights of Chinese ID cards in everyday life: transit, banking, legal, etc. While application for this ID should be tied to a passport and visa, once the ID is issued, the passport and visa should no longer be necessary for domestic travel, financial and legal transactions.
Such an ID card sounds simple but solves multiple problems:
1. tracking: the card is Chinese government controlled, it can be easily geolocated in a standardized database without relying on cooperation.
2. tied to hukou system: prevents secret dual citizenship where someone changes their passport and enters China on a visa but uses their non expired ID to conduct business as if they were a citizen. Also prevents the primary motive of doing so, which is ease of access to services.
3. makes life easier for foreigners: once a foreigner has been given a visa to China it is counterproductive to make life hard for them. If you don't want them, just don't issue a visa in the first place.
This is standard practice and if China is serious about both encouraging and controlling immigration, it needs to be done.
Have you considered that China's internet service industry is reaching saturation because it didn't buildup the domestic champions to support them in the first place? The idea is that if you can have all the AI talent or other leading tech talent, you should get that, because they create additional jobs for other industries.
As China's renewable industry grew and got more competitive, it causes de-industrialization in other countries and pushed forward employment inside China. So, should China stop encouraging talented energy or automotive talent for other country from coming? Or should it get even more competitive and suck more talent globally?
also, I see that as just defeatist mentality. There are truly cultural or language issues involved. Many Westerners may not feel comfortable moving to China for any number of reasons.
But the goal of China is to grow into such a modern state that would be attractive to such talent. And in many ways, it's already there.
Sure, in the beginning, those who move to China may be people that are more adventurous or have great career prospects. But in the longer time, China should be able to at least be attractive to other Asians to move there.
In fact, if you go around in Beijing, there are many Koreans that live there. Is that not a good thing for China to be sucking talents from other East Asian regions? Most of China's semi industry heads or highly paid individuals are from Taiwan or South Korea. Where would China's semi industry be without these people?
yes, the ID card system in China is extremely inconvenient for foreigners. If you talk to any foreigner that's in China long term, it's annoying to have to carry your passport everywhere.
Having a system in place is better than not having a system in place.
In fact, we should leave the ethnicity and country out of this. China should be accepting qualified individuals regardless of where they are from. It would be wise for every country to do this.
You can take a look at Singapore model. They make it extremely easy for foreign talent to work there.
Unless China decides to open its border with no control at all and just let everyone in, I don't think this is a comparable issue.
Even a Japanese immigration model could work for China. Right now, there is a lot of Vietnamese that move to Japan because they just lack the people needed for certain type of jobs.
At the moment, China is not at the same place. But we don't know if it will be that position in 10 years. While the general Chinese society may not like lack workers, it may lack workers for certain sectors, because young people don't want to do those jobs.
Chinese youth of today is not like what they were 15 years ago. They are very picky about what kind of job they get. That's why China has so much automation going on in factories. But there are certain industries like elderly care or nursing or babysitting that people will not enjoy seeing a robot doing those kind of jobs. And if Chinese people don't want to do them, you have to start bringing people in from Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Central Asian countries.
supercat
Colonel
China has been the world's top goods exporter for about 15 years. Here is an article from the Economist talking about China's dominance in manufacturing:
On the other hand, China's policymakers have started to promote service exports.
China is very likely to escape the middle-income trap and becomes a high-income country this year.
China's railroad transportation expanded in the first 8 months of 2025.
China’s monthly electricity consumption exceeded 1 trillion kWh twice in a row, a global first. In comparison, Japan's annual electricity consumption is less than 1 trillion kWh.