4min chapter

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Has China's Power Peaked?

Open to Debate

CHAPTER

China's Capacity to Continue to Grow

The last 40 years have been exceptional. China has the ability to continue to grow, in part because some of the factors that Michael mentions are just overstated. For example, they can very easily increase labor force participation and productivity without boosting births for the next 10 to 15 years. Their pension age right now is very low by international standards. That would half the demographic tax by 2035.

00:00
Speaker 3
You've been very patient because I put a question to Michael before you got a chance to respond, but I wanted to get that part of his argument out there. That, in fact, what happened over the last 40 years was incredibly special, unique, not repeatable. It's where it got China to where it is and without those things, there's not much lift.
Speaker 2
Michael's points are well taken. The last 40 years have been exceptional. He hasn't even talked about the fact that we now have this AI incredible breakthrough in robotics and automation that means that relatively low-cost labor just doesn't matter as much to the capital model, which I think is a far more important strategic and structural change against China and other emerging markets than anything, frankly, that he's mentioned. I thought that I disagree with him. It's more that there's a difference between rocket ship taking off and ability to continue to grow. China has the ability to continue to grow, in part because some of the factors that Michael mentions, I think, are just overstated. Overstated in terms of how much they will stop China, overstated until how much they actually exist, and overstated in terms of how much running room they still have. Let me give you an example. On the demographic front, Michael's now mentioned a couple of times, they just don't have the ability to continue to put people into their model. I think it's true that China's population has maxed out as of last year, and the contraction they're going to face over the next several generations are going to be very challenging to deal with. But that is not a problem that they have suddenly to deal with in the next year. For example, they can very easily increase labor force participation and productivity without boosting births for the next 10 to 15 years. Their pension age right now is very low by international standards. It's 60 for men. It's 55 for women. Hasn't changed in decades despite massive increases in life expectancy for China. And that would half the demographic tax by 2035. If and introduce 40 more people into the workforce, she has already flagged those reforms in his most recent party Congress report. It's true that China is underperforming education. They only started really plowing significant resources in education in the 1990s. Unlike Michael saying, that's a disaster, no, that's actual space for growth for China. As they start investing more in human capital, you're going to pay off with a demographic return with more productivity. The fact that you can move more of those workers into higher skilled labor. The fact that you can improve the demographics that you have in terms of their productivity and what they do is actually important. That allows you to move people out of low productivity agriculture, which is 25% of China's economy right now compared to 3% in industrial countries to manufacturing and services. Urbanization is only 65% in China right now. It's 80% in developed economies. So the fact is that there's still a lot of room for the Chinese before they get smashed by these demographic challenges. I'll give you one more. We can talk a lot of these. But one more to respond to Michaels. He's now on a couple of occasions talked about how the Americans and all allies are starting to really hit the Chinese heart. Now, it's absolutely true that on semiconductors, advanced semiconductors that are dual use for military purposes, that the Americans together with just in the last few days, Japanese and the Netherlands announcing they're on board too, are going to start hitting the Chinese with export controls. It means the Chinese have to invest a lot more in semiconductors or they're going to stay behind. This is why TSMC is so important Taiwan. This doesn't affect other non-strategic parts of the global economy and of the Chinese economy. It's why US-China trade is so robust. It's why trade between China and other countries is so robust. When you talk to those other leaders, you go and talk to Prime Minister Kishita in Japan who is doubling defense spending. You'd say, oh my God, that means that China is in serious trouble. At the same moment, Kishita will tell you, and I've sat down with them, that he also wants a much stronger economic relationship with China at the same time as he wants to be
Speaker 3
closer to security umbrella.

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