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Comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M | Hacker News Reader

The problem in China is that they're likely to get old before they get rich. China's GDP per capita is still only a quarter (or less) of Japan, Singapore or South Korea:

https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/japan

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This is a really serious risk, but it is also important to consider that China isn't reallly one country. - Even internal migration is restricted.

If you look at cities like Shanghai, Nanjing or Beijing, there's a subtantial minority already basically living with western living standards. That number is still growing quickly.

Furthermore, China has little problem letting old people work longer - or potentially even implement pretty brutal policies regarding the elderly.

So while China is growing old very quickly, and this will slow down progress, I do not believe it will lead to a halting of progress.

China still has a mandatory retirement age of 55 for women and 60 for men. This doesn’t mean much in the private sector, but is sort of strictly applied in the public sector. Obviously it isn’t sustainable at any rate.

They've said that every decade since ww2. I think China will have to pay off the US for their misdeeds, but they have built a valuable step in their progress in the world. They can go explore a new social role with their influence in the south china sea and with the BRI.

I would be concerned about China in the 2030s and 2040s.

A lot of those predictions were correct. The experts said the Great Leap Forward would be an utter disaster, and it was. They said the more conventional industrialization that followed would be more successful, and it was. They said the Cultural Revolution would be a disaster, and it was. When Deng switched to the free market path, the experts said it would work, and it did. And now they are saying that Xi's new semi-Maoism is going to turn out bad, and sure enough, it seems it is.

But I bet you already knew all that.

I doubt an aging population is going to free up the spratley islands and chinese military presence in the south china sea. They can now strategically threaten the oil imports for a whole bunch of SEA countries and are still growing as a military power.

If the experts are correct, can they hurry up and be correct faster because I can't wait for a prediction that has no timeframe requirements.

You didn't adjust for purchasing power parity. It's closer to 40% of Japanese GDP (PPP adjusted).

China’s population is 4x that of the USA. It makes complete sense that their per capita gdp is therefore less. It should remain that way.

I was comparing to Japan, and per capita means divided by population.

I’m well aware what per capita means. China has 10x the people as Japan. Resources are finite and the earth is already burdened trying to sustain 8 billion people. China wants to improve their per capita gdp? They should reduce their population. It’s not reasonable to assume 1.4 billion people should have the same standard of living as a country which kept their population reasonable.

Reduce their population how?

Considering China's GDP is based on manufacturing and export, reducing the population will also result in productivity decreases, which would mean a negligible change in GDP per capita, since GDP would also fall.

How is the size of population related to per-capita gdp?

Why should a country which can’t control its population growth receive more resources than one that can?

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