CHINAwatch: Population

August 22, 2023

China's defeated youth

A product of China's now-defunct "One Child Policy", a sizeable proportion of the nation's millennials have had their nests well-feathered during China's "golden era" of sustained prosperity, which saw the nation leapfrogging to become the world's second largest economy. Theirs are the so-called "4-2-1" generation: much-better times saw them grow up as a single child each pampered by two working parents and their respective grannies.

Sure they have had their years of hard grind as they faced unrelenting competition for admission to university, not to mention a prestigious one. But once they graduated, they were generally assured of a more secured future.

No longer. A host of deep-seated domestic and global challenges are catching up on China in a "perfect storm" of changes, and opportunities, "not seen in a hundred years", as flagged up by President Xi from time to time.

As China is trying to cope with a much more hostile external environment and systemic domestic economic challenges, job opportunities for graduates have dwindled, compounded by a record-high supply of 12 million new graduates a year. This comes at a time when the Fourth Industrialization is re-shaping how lives and work are organized and distributed, resulting in disappearance and sea-change of many job requirements. The prohibitively-high cost of raising a family including housing and education adds to a sense of frustration and despair.

Their hopelessness and negative feelings, however, are not commonly shared by their parents', let alone grandparents' generations, who had weathered much worse times, often with untold personal sacrifices.

All this is well captured by The Economist (17 August 2023) expose China's defeated youth.

It will take time, perhaps a decade or so, for China's young generation to adjust to these new realities.

In any case, against all odds, China's trajectory appears to be on track to unfold a new era of renaissance, where the current "defeated" youth will have to rise to unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Click here.

Posted at 03:05 AM in Belt and Road, Business, China Overview, China's Rise, Consumer market, Covid-19, Culture, Current Affairs, Defense, East and South China Seas, Economy, Energy and Environment, Geopolitics, ICT, Innovation, Investment , Manufacturing, Politics, Population, Russia, Science, South China Sea, Sustainability, Taiwan , Technology, Trade war, Ukraine , United States, Urbanization, Warfare, World Order | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 24, 2023

China's "global ambitions" according to two prominent Western sinologists

In Daring to Struggle: China's Global Ambitions Under Xi Jinping (10 June,2022), Bates Gill, Chair of the Department of Security Studies at Macquarie University and Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Insitute in London, focuses on China's six perceived strategic interests: Legitimacy; Sovereignty, Wealth, Power, Leadership and Ideas.

The Ideas consist of four strands - (a) a new global era with dynamic "changes not seen in a hundred years" as backdrop for the struggle to realize the China Dream of national renaissance; (b) an aim to build a "Community of Common Destiny" for mankind beset with interconnected and inter-dependent challenges like Climate Change and global security; (c) achieving global "unity with diversity" in international relations, relying on China's ancient adage of "harmony despite differences" (和而不同); and (d) seeking "Chinese Solutions" for global challenges instead of blindly following a superficial, one-size-fits-all Western hymnbook.

In The Final Struggle: Inside China's Global Strategy (2022), Ian Eason, Senior Director of the Project 2049 Institute, based in Arlington, Virginia, USA, tries to turn President Xi's concept of "Common Destiny" on its head, hyping it as a sinister plot to achieve global dominance by shaping a panopticon "world government" bent to his will. Understandably, to veteran China-bashers and those otherwise infected with Sinophobia, every curved shadow would look like a snake, as the Chinese saying goes. (杯弓蛇影)

Eason's overhyped narrative and wafer-thin understanding of China notwithstanding, eye-catching infographics by Louis Martin Vezian are perhaps the most interesting parts of the book, showcasing at a glance how much national progress and global influence China has achieved over recent decades under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The following reproduced infographics may come in handy by way of reference or reminder.

Download China's One-World Government (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download Taking Over International Institutions (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download Wall Street PRC (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download PRC Owned IoT in America (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download Compromised Container Ports (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download We Surround You (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download China is the Future (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download Buying Global Influence - (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Posted at 04:49 PM in Africa, Arctic, Banking, Belt and Road, Books, China Overview, China's Rise, Consumer market, Culture, Current Affairs, Defense, Democracy, East and South China Seas, Economy, Energy and Environment, EU, Finance, Freedom, Geopolitics, Hong Kong, Human Rights, ICT, Innovation, Investment , Manufacturing, Military, Nuclear Energy, Politics, Population, Russia, Science, South China Sea, Sustainability, Taiwan , Technology, Trade war, Travel, Ukraine , United States, Urbanization, Warfare, World Order | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 24, 2022