We hear that China has this great economic growth, still on the order of 8% a year, a number any nation would kill for. But, China needs to ADD 15 million jobs a year merely to keep up with population growth, having 1.3 billion people!
So, this 8% growth in China is mandatory, not merely a luxury since China still has 800 million peasants in the rural areas all clamoring to move to the cities for better pay. Even at the lowest levels, Chinese city pay is three times the basic rural income which is starvation wages.
And then consider that there are 130 million undocumented Chinese who flocked to the cities for work (not residents of the city) who have nowhere to go now that their export dependent economy is slowing rapidly. The recipe here is for a revolution in China if they cannot keep 800 plus million people working… and this is just beginning to happen. And this issue is widely known to scare the hell out of the Chinese government.
But, to avoid a revolution, they MUST have 8% economic growth indefinitely? That is not going to happen. The party is about over in China.
The point here of emphasizing China's demographics is that, without big exports to the West, they cannot sustain stability economically or politically. They are the poster child to what happens when the export economies slow drastically when the US export markets slow significantly.
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