There’s a burst of media coverage today about China’s problems–its deaths exceeded births last year, here, under the headline: “Why China’s Shrinking Population is Cause for Alarm.” And its population is aging. Among other things, it could hurt the global econony if there are not enough Chinese workers.
Then the pudding-headed columnist Bret Stephens writes a column under the headline, “China’s Decline is Undeniable. Now what?” “China is increasingly likely to grow old before it gets rich, consigning hundreds of millions of Chinese to a pnurious and often lonely old age,” he writes. He warns that domestic stress will make Xi Jinping more likely to invade Taiwan. Pretty sweeping conclusions by a columnist located half a world away.
Then in the business section we find “China Looks to Future After Economic Washout,” which does not appear to be posted online yet. China’s economy grew by only 3 percent in 2022 partly because of lockdowns and then a resurgent virus after the Zero Covid policy was summarily abandoned.
Then the charming Liu He, who is not even in China’s Politburo, goes to Davos and makes nice seen here. “We have to abandon the Cold War mentality,” he said. That line really cracks me up. And he says, China is still open for business.
These stories might make for interesting reading but they are dramatically overblown. China has 1.4 billion people. If that dips to 1.375 billion, it won’t make the slightest bit of difference to anyone. Their economy has slowed not just because of Zero Covid but because foreign companies are starting to shift assets and production out of China. Modestly, to be sure. But the rush to expand in China is over. Xi Jinping helped signal that China is not a stable partner when he sent missiles over Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi’s visit. CEOs got the message.
And as for Liu He, the Chinese have a saying, “Fight, fight. Talk, Talk.” The Chinese government may be trying to cool the foreign resistance that is building against it. Japan’s decision to double their defense budget and explicitly affirm their alliance with the United States is a case in point. So is the Biden Administration’s ban on the export of certain semiconductors and chip-making equipment. The Chinese may not have expected these developments.
But make no mistake. The Chinese government’s fundamental policies have not shifted. The root cause is the ideology that Xi Jinping embraces as none of his predecessors have. He is a Marxist-Leninst who believes that capitalism must be defeated, whereas his predecessors were content to let capitalism flourish along side the Communist Party. It would be a fundamental mistake for the world to start taking pity on China. Xi has the resources, the people, and the ambition to continue China’s current strategy of intimidation and colonization of much of the world, particularly now that he has established himself as rule-for-life. He could easily sustain China’s current course for another decade.
