If you’re Xi Jinping, you’re probably feeling pretty good right now. After a poor start, you’ve pretty well beaten the virus, your economy is roaring back, and America is imploding in public. Things could scarcely be better for you.
Still, serious long term problems persist that will present a major challenge for you in the long run. Here they are:
- DEMOGRAPHY IS DESTINY: China’s rise has been fueled by the migration of hundreds of millions of working age peasants to the cities. Unfortunately, while the Communist Party confesses error about as often as Trump does, the one child policy has been a demographic disaster. The country is aging rapidly, and there are few poor peasants left to be harvested, which means the cost of labor is going to rise substantially.
- WHERE’S THE WELFARE STATE?: China has a very skimpy welfare state. It keeps costs down by relying on families and communities to take care of their own. That works perfectly well when the family remains intact in a rural setting, but China is a very different place today. The government will ultimately have to stop counting on Confucius to do its work for it. Costs will go up dramatically.
- WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD: America abuts Canada and Mexico. China, on the other hand, abuts Russia, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, and North Korea. Not exactly the same thing.
- CLIMATE KILLS: Battles with the weather have played a big role in Chinese history. That is going to happen again with climate change. Large parts of the country will struggle with too much, or not enough, water.
- CORRUPTION IS A FEATURE OF A ONE-PARTY STATE: Without competition or a free press, there are few safeguards against corruption except the energy of the CCP’s leadership. Xi has mostly delivered on this point, but he was campaigning largely against his political adversaries. What happens five years from now, when everyone in a position of power is his friend? Will he really be willing to purge his allies, too? They probably doubt it, and so do I.