My New China Page

China, in Steven Roach's words, is just 'mind blowing'. It is for one thing enormous. This means that however low the level of current per capita income actually is, any change in China has direct global impact. Add to that the export oriented dimension of Chinese growth and controversy is guaranteed.

Then there is the way in which China is growing. China has an immense pool of untapped labour which can be introduced systematically into strategically situated centres of investment lead growth: the Yangtse and Yellow River deltas to be precise. At present China is exporting middle of the market consumer goods, but don't be mislead, china has nascent computer software, hardware and tececommunications industries. It plans to try a manned space flight later this year to demonstrate the reach of this ambition.

All of this growth is not without pain. Internally wages and prices in China itself are experiencing deflation as giant state enterprises throw formerly secure workers out on the streets to fend for themselves. Thus the industrial revolution in China is at the same time a huge social revolution, with, in turn, its winners and losers.

Lastly there is the old China. Not the one which is disappearing, but the one which is now being born, the one which is the inevitable and predictable result of all those years of single child families. So if industrial China now draws the benefits of its enormous supernumery population, this 'window of opportunity' will be quite short lived. By 2020 China will have the largest accumulation of old, and very old people on earth, with more than 22% of the population over 65.

So what we have is a country of extremes, extremes of opportunity, coupled with extremes of instability. It's very size guarantees that it is bound to make it's presence felt. So look out, it looks like it's going to be a bumpy ride!
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