CHINA: "Great? No....And it'll be a long wait!"

Google Groups, July 27, 2008: Society, Culture, China MRBluster "Too many constraints are built into the country's social, economic and political systems. For four big reasons -- dire demographics, an overrated economy, an environment under siege and an ideology that doesn't travel well -- China is more likely to remain the muscle-bound adolescent of the international system than to become the master of the world." "Chinese demographers such as Li Jianmin of Nankai University now predict a crisis in dealing with China's elderly, a group that will balloon from 100 million people older than 60 today to 334 million by 2050, including a staggering 100 million age 80 or older. How will China care for them? With pensions? Fewer than 30 percent of China's urban dwellers have them, and none of the country's 700 million farmers do. And China's state-funded pension system makes Social Security look like Fort Knox. Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer and economist at the American Enterprise Institute, calls China's demographic time bomb 'a slow-motion humanitarian tragedy in the making' that will 'probably require a rewrite of the narrative of the rising China.' " "60 percent of China's total exports are churned out by companies not owned by Chinese (including plenty of U.S. ones). When it comes to high-tech exports such as computers and electronic goods, 89 percent of China's exports come from non-Chinese-owned companies. China is part of the global system, but it's still the low-cost assembly and manufacturing part -- and foreign, not Chinese, firms are reaping the lion's share of the profits." ***** We've said all along that China's relatively recent rise among economic powers has its limitations. Among them: Fully HALF of the 1.3 billion population lives on less than $1.75 a day -- and more than that number has ZERO access to clean WATER! Just for starters. Now, a noted American journalist with many years' residence in China to back up his views, confirms that the Communist nation's future will be worse than its' present. And even that's overrated! P.S. -- India, take note. See original © 2008 Google