The tragedy is that all this has been inflicted by the Chinese on themselves. Free countries institutionalize the rule of law and the protection of human and political rights. In contrast, by preserving Party rule, China has institutionalized oppression and stupidity.

the tragedy is that it became the perfect laboratory of Rationalism. Its population implosion is the secular ideal in action.

Arguably, one of the biggest challenges of the next 5-15 years is going to be how to use the human capital that exists in the large numbers of people of 65 that will be forthcoming. We in the US already have something of a headstart: the percentage of folks over 65 that are still in the workforce has been steadily increasing. And it's not just in jobs with low physical work; if you've ever been on a charter/casino tour bus lately, you will notice a lot of older men driving them.

That requires an open society that can deal with expanding human capital without going back on stereotypes. This is something that China can never approach before reaching demographic disaster.

Friends I went to school with here in Cleveland have just finished adopting their third very beautiful little chinese baby girls. All three are from the same town in China, and two from the same orphanage!

Aside from the above, I don't understand the China bashing. Their econonmy could not possibly be growing faster and they are very capitalistic. I don't see the oppression?

Lastly, China may have more oldsters than the US, but they don't have the huge population of morbidly obese people that we are building, so I think demographics are a wash.

Why would the older majority work when they can make the young do so?

"Friends I went to school with here in Cleveland have just finished adopting their third very beautiful little chinese baby girls. All three are from the same town in China, and two from the same orphanage!

Aside from the above, I don't understand the China bashing. Their econonmy could not possibly be growing faster and they are very capitalistic. I don't see the oppression?

Lastly, China may have more oldsters than the US, but they don't have the huge population of morbidly obese people that we are building, so I think demographics are a wash."

Magnificent deployal of the triple non sequitur my friend. My hat is off to you.

Their economic stats are lies. Their banking system is corrupt and ready to collapse.

They deny about everything that our Bill of Rights protects. They are a police state. They occupy Tibet.

They have a horrible one child policy where they abort vast number of girls. Many girls who escape death are sent to Cleveland.

Any help Perry?

By the way, obesity is a rich society's disease. 90% of China still lives in poverty. The ecomomic boom (to the extent they are not makinhg it up) benefits the NE coastal area only.

Here's a plan. Figure out a way to trick your women to cut way back on having children. Make them think they're not happy onless they live like men.

The tell them they have a "right" to kill such unborn children as they do conceive.

But dodge the impending demographic disaster by bringing in tens of millions of immigrants, to do the work the missing children would have done, had they lived.

Do we all see the up-side? We are getting workers in peak productive years--no costly childhood to be paid for this way. The down-side? Only that God is just.

OJ, because a good chunk of the baby boomers have enough foresight to realize that the younger generation's wage level is stagnant, if not slightly dropping. They don't want to live those golden years poor, ya know.

Plus, those baby boomers have this overwhelming desire to stay in the limelight as long as possible. If that means showing a new way of using human capital while staying around being pests to their coworkers, all the better.

Mark my words, OJ. There will be enough PSAs out there in the next 5-10 years that explicitly state that the old geezers are being sponges if they're not being active.

Except that's false. You can't convince people with homes, HSAs and 401ks, and SS & Medicaire that they're poor. Baby boomers are spoiled brats, but they realize that. They don't think they're poor.

Perry:

So after all that growth what's the GDP per capita? What will it be when they tip into actual population decline? How many states with falling real population have "risen" during that period? Everyone has our obesity problem as soon as they have our standard of living. French women are getting fat. The Chinese can probably avoid having the standard of living we enjoyed even fifty years ago, but that's a negative, not a positive.

Perry, there is nothing wrong with "bashing China," which is nothing more than simply speaking the truth about China's self-made problems. After all, didn't the so-called great man himself, Deng Xiaoping, say that we should "seek truth from facts" (shi shi qiu shi)?

Well, all we've done is seek truth from facts. And the truth is this: No amount of economic growth can begin to make up for the untold numbers of minds and lives destroyed by the Communist regime.

"So after all that growth what's the GDP per capita?"

Per capita may be a bad measure, hundreds of millions have been affected in a positive way by the expansion. Millions world wide too.

"What will it be when they tip into actual population decline? How many states with falling real population have "risen" during that period?"

??? So your point is they should not build an economy because it might someday go down? Having a hard time following that logic, and exactly how does that make them evil?

"Everyone has our obesity problem as soon as they have our standard of living. French women are getting fat."

I don't agree that everyone is getting as fat as us, been to Europe lately? The question remains, can an old Chinese out work an obese American.

X, I don't think it wrong to bash China. I bashed them plenty when I brought up the one child policy and the consequence it has brought.

I just don't understand the generally moronic level of discourse on this blog when it comes to distilling true problems there as opposed to the demonization that occurs over the fact they have a lot of people that are getting old or that they are growing their economy which may or may not be sustainable.

I hope the communist wack jobs fall by the wayside; I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater however. I think (hope) reform is inevitable and that we don't need a war for China to 'take care of all those extra malcontent males'

They like their money now, should be sufficient.

Huh? It doesn't matter that they have a system where they'll never achieve even middle class status before they decline into oblivion?

They're evil because that's the system they designed.

Yes, Europeans are getting as fat as us.

No, no Chinese (in China) can outwork any American (in America), that's why our productivity levels are so disparate. John Henry didn't show up for work the next day. The steam driller did.

Perry, be careful. You're coming very close to committing the fallacy of economic determinism.

First, just because the Chinese economy is growing doesn't meant all Chinese are benefiting equally. They aren't. Some Chinese are becoming wealthier, many more are poor. Even if the poor are, in absolute terms, better than before, they're falling farther and farther behind those who are rich. There is an old and useful idea that revolutions erupt not because the poor have nothing to lose, but because the poor deeply resent the rich, who are perceived to have become rich through corruption and exploitation. In China, this dangerous relationship of relative deprivation now exists between the coast and the interior, between the cities and the countryside, between the new middle class and a massive floating population of migrant workers that now numbers a hundred million, and between the corrupt Party princelings and the commoners who don't enjoy any Party connections. It's not good enough to say it's "sufficient" the Chinese "like their money now." Economic growth doesn't always mean everyone's happy.

Second, using simple models of economic man to predict the political behavior of dictatorships isn't a good idea. Yes, there is no doubt that many in the Chinese regime are delighted with the country's economic growth. But there is also no doubt that there are powerful circles in the Party and armed forces who are convinced this economic success portends China's inevitable triumph over a decadent and declining West. Not every Chinese general and admiral wants to make money only for the sake of making money. For many in China's armed forces, money can also buy better tanks, fighters, submarines, and missiles, and those generals and admirals don't intend for them to be only shown off on military parades. Among too many Chinese, the idea of war is not viewed with horror the way it is among Europeans and Americans. The danger isn't that America will begin a war with China. It is that China's dictators will misread America's traditional reluctance to fight wars, and will begin a war they didn't really intend to fight. When China was poor, its regime knew it couldn't challenge America. Now that China's richer, all bets are off. Economic growth doesn't always lead to peace.

Third, whether China's economic growth is sustainable is critical in a very fundamental way. Now that Marxist ideology has been totally discredited, the regime can only rely on economic growth to justify its grip on power. When China's economic engine begins to sputter, what will the regime have to fall back on? Absolutely nothing, except a very ugly brand of Chinese chauvinism. Again, the economic will be trumped by the political.

Finally, up to now, reform in China has always meant economic reform. Political reform is not really something that's on the table. The call for greater democracy from some Party elders, the emergence of different views in the Chinese press, the decentralization of power to a certain extent from Beijing to provincial and local governments: all this is still taking place within the political framework of the dictatorial Party-state. During the 1980s, the same phenomena existed in the Soviet Union. But remember. The Soviet dictatorship did not transform itself by reforming its political system. Its attempts to carry out political reform led to its overthrow, a lesson of which many in the highest levels of the Chinese regime are keenly aware. In China today, there is no necessary and sufficient relationship between economic and political reform.

For better or worse, human life and choice cannot and should not be reduced to the economic. Yes, the Chinese regime is evil and faces an unhappy future because of its own evil choices. It will not be saved by an ephemeral prosperity.

The demonic lies in the reasons the society is so retarded--politically, economically & culturally. Consider just one side effect of the policy that is causing there to be such an age imbalance, the female shortage. If you can justify the abortion and infanticide of the millions of girls then you can't hope to understands why folks oppose the PRC.

X, I am not sure your first point bolsters in any way this blogs theme that economic growth in China is a bad thing, an evil thing, which will ultimately lead to their demise.

"In China, this dangerous relationship of relative deprivation now exists between the coast and the interior, between the cities and the countryside, between the new middle class and a massive floating population of migrant workers that now numbers a hundred million, and between the corrupt Party princelings and the commoners who don't enjoy any Party connections."

It is obvious based on your statement that the Chinese political system has a very big problem on its hands, all due to the economic growth. If you don't like the party leadership, the growth is your friend. It firmly puts them between a rock and a hard place. They run a large trade imbalance with the USA, own a ton of our debt, need growth to keep the natives somewhat happy, etc, etc...does not sound like a good place to start a war from. But if they don't, they have to deal with the populous who now demands more of everything, money, rights, freedom. Again, demonizing the growth is moronic.

I am not sure what your overall point is. The reality is that China was one big third world nation and it was controlled by evil communists. I think we can agree on this point? (as an aside, I watched The Red Violin the other night, a great movie. The Cultural Revolution must have been hell). Things are changing, millions have benefited and the road to the Communist regime downfall is in sight. The change that has occured has helped people, a substanial number are better off and many want the same. I am not really sure what alternative you are suggesting.

You bring up the Soviet Union. I think we have China, strategically speaking, in a much more disadvantaged position, vis a vis the Soviet Union. The Soviets had much more equal footing, to us, and were able to wage a cold war; China by comparison builds us stuff, on the cheap, and is happy to get the work, then turns around and lends us money for high level economic growth. They will occasionally oppose us at the UN or send some idiot some money, hardly dangerous.

My opinion is that people on this blog will project into every aspect of Chinese life an evil mainly due to the fact China is not religious, not Christian, basically secular. Hence, the moronic level of demonizing everything.

This place paints secular Europe with much of the same broad stroke, the getting old theme, no future theme. I would just like to see basic reforms in China occur - without millions dead. These guys are fine with the millions dead as long as they can project a Christian culture on it. Big difference.

Perry, please note that I am a Chinese who has lived in all three major parts of the Chinese world - Hong Hong, Taiwan, and China. I am intimately acquainted with the mainland Chinese regime, and I know that China's problems aren't due primarily to economic growth. Economic growth is only exacerbating old and deep-rooted political problems that originate in the very nature of the Chinese regime itself.

I also don't think economic growth will solve those problems. Indeed, it is giving birth to new political contradictions the regime can't begin to understand and solve.

You continue to argue from an almost purely economic perspective. But my point is that this approach isn't enough. It's too simplistic. It misses far too much of politics in a society where politics isn't simply determined by the economic and where politics is truly a matter of life and death.

My friend, you also underestimate the contempt and hatred many Chinese have for the West and America. There is an ugly face to Chinese nationalism that is mostly hidden from foreigners. This dark side of China, too, has little to do with economics, and everything to do with politics. In an age when much of America wallows in self-doubt and self-criticism, don't be too surprised if some Chinese foolishly conclude that America's time has gone and China's time has come.

X tells us that Boxerism is alive and well.

A pity, but a pity for China only. A great advantage for the West, I should say. Reactive xenophobia, like any irrational substitution for adaptive behavior is crippling. It is well that this should be so. "Oft evil will doth evil mar," J.R.R. Tolkien wrote,

The story of Chinese failure in the age of exploration illustrates this fatal effect. It seems that China had great ships capable of traversing the globe, not long before the Portuguese and Spanish opened the world for the West, but sloth and pagan folly brought it all to naught. They turned inward, broke up their great ships, dismissed their navigators. Let the world come to us, they thought then. We are coming.

... not be saved by an ephemeral prosperity. Righto! It'll be saved by a real lasting prosperity.

China's economic growth isn't a bad thing, just a trivial one.

The remarkable economic growth you keep nattering about got it to a quarter of the GDP per capita of Taiwan or a fifth of Hong Kong, ethnically Chinese states with superior cultures.

But just as they approach the point where they'll have to start constructing some kind of modern social welfare net they reach the point where they have to pay the bill for their mass murderous population control policy.

They have neither the demographic nor the economic structures (and obviously not the cultural fabric) to make the sort of transition you expect them to. Europe at least had a couple centuries of political normalcy before it hit the demographic/welfare crunch. China will have had none.

You are exactly right that its problems lie in its long secular experiment, but wrong that no one cares about its people.