HMM: China Is A Dying Paper Dragon.

Last year India surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation. That might be a marginal consideration until specifics are examined. The fact is, China’s population fell for the first time in 60 years, and China is now the fastest-aging nation in human history. As most know, the population replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman. China’s 2011-2020 census (as far as CCP numbers can be trusted) shows their replacement rate is 1.3 at best. Peter Zeihan has reported the replacement rate of women in highly populated urban areas like Shanghai is 0.7!

Replacement rates, and these charts, tell us that China’s demographic collapse will occur within one generation – within a human lifetime! China’s worker-age population peaked in the last decade, and by 2050 will be less than half of what it was in 2020.
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Further evidence of the growing economic maelstrom is the Chinese debt to GDP ratio and the level of private credit. The United States debt ratio, after spending trillions in the last two years, was 123.4% of GDP in December 2022. Chinese debt is now 279.9% of GDP. The growth of private credit in China beggars belief, making ludicrous any notion the yuan could ever challenge the dollar as a global reserve currency.

The Soviet Union looked very strong to most outsiders right up until it didn’t.

In Gorbachev, the Soviets had a leader who wasn’t willing to spill (much) blood to maintain the illusion. Whether Xi or one of his successors has such restraint remains to be seen.