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You are either woefully misinformed, or just plain lying. From 1990 to 2008, life expectancy in China rose just 5.1 years, to 73.1, but nearly every other big developing country had a bigger increase over that span, despite much slower economic growth. Since 2000, most of Western Europe, Australia and Israel, all of which started with higher life expectancy, have also outpaced China. Airborne particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) caused 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010 alone. Rates of asthma are up over 40% the last five years.
I am currently living in Hong Kong and I often travel to mainland China for vacation or business purposes. I am fully aware of the situation there. Look, the UK and the US were suffering from heavy pollution too when they were in the process of being industrialized.
When such a large part of your country does have electricity it drives many things especially urban density. This was true in the western industrialization also. WWII brought about huge changes and the spread of industry thru out more of the US. Its only continue to this day. mnay cities have suffered decline in people living within them that has shifted the taxbase itself.
I am currently living in Hong Kong and I often travel to mainland China for vacation or business purposes. I am fully aware of the situation there. Look, the UK and the US were suffering from heavy pollution too when they were in the process of being industrialized.
China has a high degree of censorship and are very untrusting of their population.
The communist party diverts too many resources into maintaining power. The best and brightest of China leave because of the autocratic nature of their government.
China's government hasn't changed very much since the olden days with emperor and his subjects making all the decision.
China will likely suffer a recession after the real estate bubble bursts and then they'll make some economic headway
No surprise here, and the trend will only continue for at least the remainder of this decade.
Not it won't.
First, the Chinese numbers are highly dubious. The most obvious tell is that Chinese electrical production has not increased at a rate even remotely approaching that of Chinese GDP growth.
Second, we're looking at massive asset inflation through a gargantuan credit bubble that makes our little problem in 2008 look mild by comparison.
Third, as noted in a previous thread, the working population of China is about to decline precipitously. According to the UN, China will lose an estimate 250,000,000 workers between now and mid-century.
Demographics will NOT hurt China. It has 1.35 billion people after all! Eastern European countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and the Baltic States are still developing nations and all have declining population, but their GDP growth is still quite impressive. As for China, its population is actually still growing albeit at a very slow rate. It still conveniently added another 70 million in the past 10 years, and that is more than the population of the United Kingdom or France.
China and the rest of the BRICS will inaugurate a new global bank called the BRICS Development Bank to be headquartered in Shanghai. It will serve as an alternative to the World Bank and the IMF as it offers much lucrative borrowing terms than the harsh conditions imposed by the WB or the IMF.
China's ghost cities usually take a few years before they are filled with residents. When you see a ghost city, you should check again in a few years to see if things have changed instead of just looking at one side of the coin. Urbanisation is a massive movement in China so these so called new ghost cities serve as future habitats for the present rural Chinese.
Besides, haven't we heard of the same negative rhetoric about China over and over again?
Actually, no.
At this very moment in history, December 20, 2014, China will have the highest working-age population it ever will. China will lose roughly 250,000,000 workers over the next 35 years. The ratio of workers supporting an elderly population will be untenable.
China, economically speaking, is a dead man walking.
At this very moment in history, December 20, 2014, China will have the highest working-age population it ever will. China will lose roughly 250,000,000 workers over the next 35 years. The ratio of workers supporting an elderly population will be untenable.
China, economically speaking, is a dead man walking.
Have you ever been to China? Unlike America, the elderly live better there than here. They don't take like 50 pills a day for heart conditions, it's unheard of in China for someone to be popping pill bottles daily. They don't have expensive monthly expenses like here. Doctors are affordable, food is cheap, and typically the elders live with their 2-3rd gen unlike America where the kids just dump their parents off to nursing homes.
In terms of global economics China can be likened to any of America's largest cities of the early nineteen hundreds, huge commercial infrastructure, huge population impact, eco-squalor, and most of the other negatives of big city life that propelled people out to the far flung suburbs. That model was simply imported to entire nations that now find themselves being the worlds factory, and little else.
In this role of big manufacturing and financial center, China serves the rest of the worlds needs to their own detriment. Think of Detroit, Gary Indiana, Pittsburgh, Chicago, cities that saw a mass exodus from it's core to the suburbs, leaving the poor behind to deal with the urban decay. Today many of the wealthy Chinese are leaving, they have been schooling their children in foreign nations for over ten years and the Chinese countryside is no longer a respite from the eco-consequences of all that economic growth. Add in the fact of a government guided by western debt capitalism as their principal business model and you will see a nation struggling with the same problems we saw in the 1900's American growth model.
Chinese GDP can't be the sole determiner of that nations standing when compared to other nations. The all inclusive view of China has to be one that allows for their future to be seen as one fraught with social consequence, this has been the case in most of the large American cities where capital flight occurred as the consequence of a collision between the forces of social unrest, an underemployed populace, and the base principles of for profit enterprise. Chinese capital is fleeing, and that is the natural course for capital, seeking the best ROI means not becoming financially responsible for all that social and environmental cost inevitably tied to any nation's large scale economic growth.
The big elephant in the global living room is the fact that there aren't any more cheap and lawless nations for the likes of China and India to export their western business model to. After all, that exporting notion gave rise to the fortunes of all those American companies that went to China in order to escape the ecological and labor costs of domestic production. This will be the real litmus test for the future of both of these industrial giants. When labor unrest, pollution, fraud, crime, and poverty, stand along side GDP to create a balanced view we may just need to admit the folly in thinking that GDP and a nations well being are synonymous.
China without doubt has massive pollution problem especially in their cities where most the economy is based. Even then who benefitted most from that expansion isn't even close to the people themselves.
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