[Epoch Times, September 26, 2022](Comprehensive report by The Epoch Times reporter Zhang Ting) Sebastian Mallaby, senior fellow of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, said on September 24 An article titled “These Signs China is Beginning to Collapse” in the Washington Postepidemic、real estatethe suppression of technology giants and China’s demographic problems.
Malaby opened the question by asking, is China an economic giant and will it quickly surpass the United States in terms of technology in the future? Still a sick giant, affected by demographics,real estatePlagued by crises and counterproductive government mandates?
Malaby said that the answer to that question of skill is both. But he is quick to stress that China’s weakness is increasingly dominating its strengths.
Malaby listed in the article the CCP’sDevelopments in areas such as drones, mobile payments and 5G network equipment, and artificial intelligence illustrate why some fear that China will one day overtake the United States. But Malaby said,As far as CCP leaders are concerned, they face deeper challenges.
This year, China’s economic growth is expected to be just over 3 percent, he said. That’s well below the official target of 5.5 percent; a sham compared to China’s economic performance a decade ago, when annual growth was around 8 percent. The CCP will attribute the slowdown to idiosyncratic obstacles. But these obstacles collectively point to the bigger picture, “an authoritarian system is reaching its limits”.
The first hurdle, Malaby said, was COVID-19.Once appear anywhere in ChinaepidemicIf there are signs of an outbreak, the CCP will implement severe blockade measures. Shanghai, Shenzhen and dozens of other cities have suffered economically devastating curfews, disrupting global supply chains and causing food shortages and other hardships for millions. In the Chinese border town of Ruili, which borders Myanmar, residents were barred from leaving their homes for a total of 119 days between March 2021 and April 2022, Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported.
At a time when most countries in the world are gradually opening up their economies and implementing the policy of “coexisting with the virus”, the CCP’s extreme “coexistence”clearpolicy” has sparked dissatisfaction among more and more Chinese people. In the early morning of September 18, a bus transporting COVID-19 quarantined people in Guizhou overturned, killing 27 people. Although local officials apologized, it was difficult to quell the anger of the people.
Netizen “Nobita Nobi” said, “Apologizing cannot revive the deceased, and betrayal of trust must be chilling. This accident consumes the trust of the whole society. The gap in social trust cannot be repaired with a sincere apology. What’s more, Sincerity cannot be proved by a word, a manuscript, or a bow. And the transfer is still going on…”
The second hurdle facing the CCP, Malaby said, is the real estate issue. Once once more, the CCP has made political decisions that discourage private consumption. As a result, state distorting policies promote unhealthy growth in the real estate market.
In the 2000s, China manipulated its currency, which boosted exports but also led to unsustainable trade surpluses, he said. The Communist Party’s next move is to order banks and local governments to promote the rise of the construction industry. While once more boosting growth, it replaced unsustainable foreign bond purchases with unsustainable domestic debt. As a result, China’s largest real estate developer defaulted on its debt. Buyers of unfinished apartments are furious, and boycotts of mortgage payments have spread to more than a hundred cities. Home prices have fallen for 12 consecutive months. With real estate driving more than a quarter of the economy, the industry’s collapse threatens a broader recession in China’s economy.
A third hurdle casts a shadow over China’s power in tech, Malaby said. For political reasons, the CCP cannot tolerate tech giants that aspire to be Elon Musk-style influencers. These people list companies on foreign stock exchanges and start companies to help Chinese students apply to foreign universities. The Chinese government has cracked down on these tech giants. And the CCP will not encourage the next generation of technologists to start companies in China.
The fourth hurdle, Malaby said, is China’s demographics: In 1979, in yet another statist madness, CCP leaders implemented a harsh one-child policy that led to sex-selective abortions, gender imbalances, Birth rates are falling rapidly. The government finally turned to a two-child policy in 2016 when it recognized the trigger it had ignited that threatened to spark a population crisis. Last year, in a panic, the government announced a three-child policy, as well as plans to encourage fertility, but it was too late, and the fertility rate showed no signs of picking up.
China’s workforce is ageing due to falling birth rates, and there are concerns that demographic changes might lead to higher pension costs and lower economic growth.
According to the BBC, Yi Fuxian, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that because of population problems, China’s economy may not be able to surpass the size of the United States at all. He also said that unlike developed countries, China’s economy is like a plane, still in the air, but suddenly there is not enough labor, just like the plane suddenly runs out of fuel, which will be a disaster for the Chinese economy and even the world economy.
All of these obstacles are not good news, Malaby said. The CCP’s “centralized economic model is coming to an end,” he tweeted Sunday (September 25), summarizing his Washington Post article.
Responsible editor: Lin Yan#
