by Uldis Sprogis
For all its bluster, China has got problems.
Is China the next superpower? Is the media's depiction of the country as a ten-foot giant really accurate? That's dubious. For all its bluster on the global stage, China is a giant in trouble.
Here are some of the reasons we know:
Perhaps the biggest problem in China is its erstwhile "one child" policy, which created many single, self-absorbed adults with poor social skills and an entitlement mindset that included no great desire to marry young and bear the financial burden of offspring. China switched to a two-child policy and recently revised it to allow three children per family. But it's too little, too late. The best result is that in about 20 years, the Chinese population will probably be more than halved anyway, instead of something worse, and the elderly will be a great burden on their single offspring and the economy.
Already only about 10% of China's young population is getting married, which implies an even more precipitous drop in population in the future. China does not encourage immigration from abroad, so a precipitous drop in population will have a drastically bad impact on a shrinking economy and even on the social life of the average Chinese.
Another problem is income disparity, with a vast gulf of differences between a tiny urban elite and the country's many urban and rural poor. It's an even greater disparity in income wealth distribution than exists in the United States. That may be a reason why the CCP has decided to crack down on glorified celebrities and wealthy capitalists and is forcefully trying to redistribute their wealth, especially to the tech working class, who largely have been working a 996 shift, which means working from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M.., six days a week.
With such a hard work schedule, it is no wonder that the CCP had to suppress a lying flat movement on the internet, which tried to popularize minimum work, no marriage, living single, and not doing much of anything. This movement sprang up as a passive revolt over the oppressive working conditions in the nation. It is no wonder that with slave labor–like working conditions, Chinese youths have little time to socialize and, with low, wages don't have enough money to comfortably support a family with offspring.
The CCP also views foreign influences, and especially the English language, as another corrupting influence on the population. Too many ideas about freedom and a population starts to question why their dictatorial leaders should be there. That is seen as a threat to the country's stability; therefore, the authorities have acted.
The Chinese government recently has stopped having exams for the English language in primary schools. Instructors will probably soon no longer teach much English to the average Chinese. You can almost say the CCP is getting paranoid about Western culture corrupting the Chinese population. Already there has been censorship of Western literature, movies, videos, websites, and apps. Meanwhile, video games are limited to three hours a day for children under 18, visas are harder to get for Chinese citizens and foreigners, and probably more censorship of lifestyle is on the way.
On the foreign policy front, China has problems, too.
Because Chinese fishing fleets fish in the territorial waters of foreign nations, because they make the "Belt and Road" loans to foreign countries for development on unscrupulous terms, and because they build artificial islands in the South China Sea in a bid to nationalize international territory, they are in trouble. They are in even worse trouble because of COVID-19's spread throughout the world, which hasn't improved their global name. Worse still, they threateningly fly military aircraft into Taiwanese airspace, and, in a new development to come of it, many nations have banded together to challenge Chinese hegemony. China's reputation as a potential trusted ally is being quickly eroded, and many companies are leaving China and seeking profitable havens in other countries.
In China's rush to outcompete the West by stealing intellectual property and making cheap knockoffs, the Chinese are developing a bad, unethical reputation internationally. That reduces its clout. Amazon has finally stopped selling thousands of counterfeit Chinese goods on the internet, and many stock investors are beginning to pull their money out of Chinese company stocks, fearing more strong-arm censorship tactics from the CCP such as making for-profit tutoring companies illegal.
China rushed to make a submarine for the military, but that has been trouble for the Chinese, too. The end product was so noisy that it left an easy-to-locate signal underwater, which makes it rather useless as a stealth weapon in future military conflicts. Its aircraft carriers are also handicapped with flaws that make them marginally useful in times of war.
China may be good at knockoffs, but innovation is not its forte. There is no attempt at stimulating intellectual property and patents in research and development. In effect, there is very little national or private incentive for new, innovative companies to start and grow into viable companies, as is the case in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the USA.
Meanwhile, industrialization is polluting the water supply and countryside, farmers are restricted from moving into cities for fear that food shortages will escalate, wealthy celebrities and capitalists are being financially cut down to size or ostracized, there is a housing bubble that threatens to decimate the real estate business and many workers with it, and the average citizen is being terrorized by a social credit system and cell phone surveillance, all designed to create fear in dissenters and rule-breakers.
There are many signs of hasty faulty planning and building, which is resulting in high-rise building and bridge defects and even collapses, overflowing dams, and severe flooding conditions that are ruining potable drinking water and disrupting many lives. All of this is just further evidence that China has troubles up the wazoo and will have even more in the foreseeable future.
China may still have a favorable balance of trade with other nations, but it seems as though the CCP's unethical attempt to force more traditional communism onto the nation will result in long-duration suffering for the people and an inability to become a respected dominant political player in the international field. The CCP is attempting to further increase centralized top-down government planning, which is always disastrous in the long run and portends failure and misery for China, similar to the final failure of the Soviet Union government.
Many failing debt-overloaded businesses are being subsidized by a deficit spending government, so bankruptcies are still few and far between, but the day of financial reckoning is rapidly coming.
The United States is in bad shape morally and economically, but the power of money has corrupted the leadership of China to the point where no amount of coercive CCP effort will solve the problems. China's troubles will balloon in the foreseeable future. China is in trouble, and the CCP's strong-arm tactics, censorship, and high housing costs are just making a bad situation worse for the average Chinese citizen.
Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.
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Uldis Sprogis
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/china_is_in_deep_trouble_and_bound_to_get_worse.html
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