De-risking remains the top priority in dealing with China, even in research cooperation on key digital topics such as artificial intelligence. According to a new study, the output of joint publications between European and Chinese researchers in this field continues to rise steadily.
The study is part of an EU project aimed at determining in which areas collaboration is “desirable, possible or impossible” – in other words, finding the balance between creating knowledge and minimizing the risk of misuse, such as China using the results for surveillance or military purposes.
Unlike the United States, Europe remains relatively open to collaboration, explained the study’s authors to Christiane Kuehl. This increases the interest of Chinese institutions in finding European partners. However, informed decisions on a case-by-case basis are necessary to exclude risks.
China’s first self-developed drilling ship is said to be capable of drilling holes up to 11,000 meters deep through the Earth’s crust into the upper mantle. If successful, it would be a unique record in human history, potentially providing new insights into processes leading to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the movement of tectonic plates.
However, it’s not only about scientific achievements; there’s also a prestige element. Similar to the race to the moon, several nations are in intense competition to reach the Earth’s mantle, as Joern Petring writes – but so far, without success. The Soviets came closest in the 1970s, reaching a depth of 12,262 meters on the Kola Peninsula. However, they also didn’t reach the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the underlying mantle.
Research collaboration between the EU and China continues to increase even during times of de-risking. This resulted from a recent study on joint publications by European and Chinese researchers on digital topics and artificial intelligence in various disciplines. According to the study, the output of co-publications has been consistently increasing since 2011. The vast majority of tech-related cooperation, 65 percent, focused on applied sciences – research aimed at practical solutions – followed by natural sciences at 18 percent.
The study is part of the EU project ReConnect China, which aims to determine in which fields cooperation between the EU and China is “desirable, possible or impossible”. The researchers examine collaborations in science and technology, economics and trade, as well as governance and foreign policy, with a focus on the key disciplines and institutions in China and the EU, including the UK, Norway and Switzerland (EU-27/AC). The ultimate goal is to create independent knowledge for a resilient approach to the People’s Republic, fostering higher China expertise, even in specialized areas.
To do this, the authors combed through the scientific citation database “Web of Science” from the research firm Clarivate – specifically using keywords related to digital topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and big data. The entire study revolves exclusively around these tech aspects, covering collaborations in various fields: For the period from 2011 to 2022, the researchers found tens of thousands of co-publications related to their focus.
While the United States still leads, they have been publishing less with China since 2021. In 2022, according to the study, co-publications between Europe and China already surpassed those between the USA and China. “We believe that this downward trend is related, among other things, to the larger geopolitical situation and the tense relationship between China and the USA,” says Philipp Brugner, one of the authors of the study, in an interview with Table.Media.
“China’s interest is, therefore, to increasingly focus on Europe because we are more accessible in research cooperation and the rhetoric towards China is not as harsh yet,” says Brugner. “We need to be very aware of this interest – and when there are inquiries, look much more closely than we have in recent years.” The goal is to prevent misuse: Especially the digital applications covered in the study could easily be used for surveillance or military purposes outside the agreed research purpose.
However, Brugner does not believe that Europe will turn away from research cooperation with China as clearly as the USA currently is; rather, it will maintain a balance. “I think we will proceed very selectively in the future.” The authors recommend greater awareness of risks with the aim of making informed decisions. However, they explicitly do not advocate for stopping cooperation.
According to the study, co-publications in applied sciences focused mainly on the following sub-disciplines:
In the natural sciences, physics and astronomy dominated cooperation (seven percent). Another significant field was clinical medicine (also seven percent).
The researchers also explored who collaborates with whom. They found 17,000 institutions in the EU-27/AC and China involved in joint publications. In Europe, this mainly includes universities and institutes from Germany, the UK and France. The authors then focused on the most active institutions.
They noticed that on the Chinese side, the state-owned Academy of Sciences dominated (with over 4,600 co-publications between 2011 and 2022), followed by Beijing’s Tsinghua University (just over 1,900) and Shanghai Jiaotong University (just under 1,600).
In Europe, especially universities from the UK cooperate. 44 percent of co-publications between the EU-27/AC and China had at least one author from the United Kingdom – more than Germany (15 percent) and France (11 percent) combined. Among the top 25 universities involved in co-publications with China, the study identified six outside the UK, including the Technical University of Munich, the Swiss ETH Zurich, the Delft University of Technology from the Netherlands, and three Scandinavian universities.
“The high participation of the UK surprised us,” says co-author Gábor Szüdi. According to him, this is due to the high level and good reputation of universities there and the English language, not so much political preferences. The researchers found the most intense bilateral collaboration between the University of Oxford and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with 189 co-publications. They also identified a dynamic relationship between TUM and Shanghai’s Tongji University, with 61 joint publications.
Chinese researchers did not specifically seek cooperation with politically inclined states such as Hungary, according to Szüdi. “They want to cooperate with the very best, even in Germany or the Netherlands.” Generally, collaboration is concentrated on a few countries and institutes. In Eastern Europe, only a few institutes collaborate with China; a significant exception is the very active Polish Academy of Sciences.
This corresponds to an observation the authors made in the data. “We suspect that partnerships are deliberately formed with universities whose name may not be the biggest overall but are leading in a niche discipline or technology,” says Brugner. This could be rewarding for both sides. However, he also warns: In general, one must “learn to deal better with this type of intelligence, meaning to understand that some inquiries do not happen by chance.” China observes the research and technology sector in Europe and then knocks very specifically where there may still be a missing piece for research and development to achieve its technological maturity breakthrough.
With a new specialized ship, China seeks to penetrate the Earth’s crust and reach into the mantle. The vessel, christened “Mengxiang” (Dream), China’s first self-developed drilling ship, embarked on its maiden test voyage last Monday, as reported by the state news agency Xinhua.
The colossal ship, nearly 180 meters long and 33 meters wide, is designed to cover 15,000 nautical miles and operate for 120 days without returning to port. However, the ship’s alleged drilling capability is the most impressive aspect. According to Xinhua, it can drill holes up to 11,000 meters deep, making it by far the leading vessel in this regard.
Through such deep drilling, scientists could obtain direct samples from the Earth’s mantle, potentially providing new insights into the processes leading to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the movement of tectonic plates.
The previous record for deep-sea drilling was set in 2019 by the Japanese ship “Chikyu“, reaching a depth of 3,250 meters. The aging US research ship “Joides Resolution” recently reached a depth of around 2,000 meters. Both ships are part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), a collaboration of 20 countries exploring the ocean together.
Now, China also joins the competition with the “Mengxiang” and appears to have significant ambitions. The ship can “drill through the Earth’s crust into the upper mantle”, according to Xinhua, citing unnamed sources. If successful, China would be the first nation to accomplish this complex feat.
Generations of scientists have worked on exploring the interior of our planet. Similar to the race to the moon during the Cold War, there has been an intense competition to reach the Earth’s mantle, but so far, without success.
The Earth’s crust is the outermost layer and forms the solid surface on which we live. It extends from the Earth’s surface downward to the Mohorovičić Discontinuity (short “Moho”). This is the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the underlying mantle.
The ultimate goal for geologists is to penetrate the Moho, whose depth varies significantly depending on the geographical location. While on land, drilling would often need to reach 30 to 50 kilometers deep to reach the Moho, it is about five to ten kilometers at the seafloor.
For this reason, the US attempted ocean drilling in the 1960s. The “Mohole” project took place in the Pacific Ocean. Despite some scientific successes, it was discontinued before reaching the Moho due to high costs and technical difficulties.
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union launched the “Kola Superdeep Borehole” project on the Kola Peninsula, reaching a depth of 12,262 meters. It remains the deepest borehole in the world to this day, but it also did not reach the Moho.
While international research on the Earth’s crust continued, other methods proved more efficient in exploring the properties of the mantle. Seismological studies, for example, have provided valuable insights.
However, the International Ocean Discovery Program has not abandoned its original goal. Efforts persist to reach the Earth’s mantle. The race to the center of the Earth now enters the next round with the Chinese.
Nevertheless, Beijing does not hide the fact that, in addition to scientific interests, it also pursues economic interests. The “Mengxiang” is intended to help exploit energy resources in the sea and contribute to “national energy security”. With this goal in mind, drilling is taking place not only in the ocean but also on land.
Chinese engineers began a new deep drilling project last July. They aim to drill a hole 10,520 meters deep into the Earth’s crust in the Sichuan Basin in southwestern China. The region is a significant gas-producing area, and the engineers expect natural gas deposits there. Shortly before that, China launched another drilling project in the Tarim Basin in northwestern China. The super-drilling is set to go down to a depth of 11,100 meters.
Earlier this month, the ratings agency Moody’s cut its outlook on China’s sovereign credit rating to negative, citing risks from a deepening property crisis and a prolonged growth slowdown. In fact, Moody’s now predicts that annual economic growth will fall to 4 percent in 2024 and 2025, before slowing further, to 3.8 percent, on average, for the rest of the decade. Potential growth will decline to 3.5 percent by 2030. A major driver of this slowdown will be “weaker demographics.”
Not surprisingly, China’s leaders said they were “disappointed” with the downgrade, claiming that the economy still has “huge development resilience and potential” and will remain a powerful engine of global growth. But China’s assessment of its potential growth is based on deeply flawed forecasts.
On August 24, 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping convened nine economists – including former World Bank Chief Economist Justin Yifu Lin – for a symposium that would guide the 14th Five-Year Plan for economic and social development. Based on that discussion, Xi declared that it was “completely possible” for China to double its GDP per capita over the next 16 years.
Lin explained the logic behind this optimistic forecast. In 2019, China’s GDP per capita was only 22.6% of the level in the United States (calculated by purchasing power parity). Germany was at the same level in 1946, Japan in 1956, and South Korea in 1985, and their economies grew at an average rate of 9.4 percent, 9.6 percent, and 9 percent, respectively, over the subsequent 16 years.
Even hampered by low population growth and a trade and technology war with the US, Lin concluded, China’s potential annual growth – 8 percent in 2019-35, and 6 percent in 2036-50 – could easily translate into real annual growth of 6 percent and 4 percent, respectively. Per this forecast, China’s GDP would surpass that of the US in 2030, and be twice as large by 2049, at which point there would be four times as many Chinese as Americans.
Lin had previously made even more optimistic predictions. In 2005, he forecast that China’s economy would be 1.5-2 times larger than America’s by 2030, and that there would be five times as many Chinese. In 2008, he was even more sanguine, predicting that China’s economy would be 2.5 times the size of America’s by 2030. In 2011, he was back to forecasting that China’s economy would be twice as large as that of the US in 2030, and in 2014, he returned to his 2005 forecast that China’s economy would be 1.5-2 times larger.
Over the years, China’s leaders have embraced Lin’s forecasts as a kind of vindication of their political system and governance model. “The world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century,” Xi declared in 2021, “but time and situation are in our favor.” Similarly, Ma Zhaoxu, the vice minister for foreign affairs, pledged last year that, in the face of efforts to impede China’s rise, Chinese diplomats would uphold the “spirit of struggle” to ensure the country’s continued development. During the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders eagerly presented China’s response as a reflection of its “institutional advantage.”
But, however appealing to China’s leaders Lin’s economic forecasts may be, they have proved wildly wrong, not least because they fail to account for China’s bleak demographic outlook. Both a higher median age and a higher proportion of people over 64 are negatively correlated with growth, and on both points, China is doing far worse than the three countries to which Lin compares it.
When Germany’s GDP per capita was equivalent to 22.6 percent that of the US, its median age was 34. In Japan and South Korea, the median age was just 24. After those 16 subsequent years of strong growth, the median age in the three countries stood at 35, 30, and 32, respectively. Contrast that with China, where the median age was 41 in 2019, and will reach 49 in 2035.
Likewise, at the beginning of the 16-year period to which Lin refers, the proportion of people over 64 in Germany, Japan, and South Korea was 8 percent, 5 percent, and 4 percent, respectively; at the end, it stood at 12 percent, 7 percent, and 7 percent. In China, that proportion was 13 percent in 2019 and will be 25 percent in 2035. In the 16 years after the proportion of people over 64 reached 13 percent in Germany (in 1966) and Japan (in 1991), these economies’ average annual growth was only 2.9 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
Moreover, in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, the labor force (aged 15-59) began to decline in the 12th, 38th, and 31st years after their per capita GDP equaled 22.6 percent that of the US. China’s began to decline in 2012.
If one imagines China’s economy as an airplane, the 1978 launch of the policy of reform and opening up would have been what ignited the fuel – the young workers – that enabled the economy to take off and fly at high speeds for three decades. But, in 2012, the fuel began to run low, causing the plane to decelerate.
Instead of adjusting to their new reality, the Chinese authorities – heeding the advice of economists like Lin – continued to lean on the throttle by investing heavily in real estate, thereby creating a massive property bubble. It is obviously dangerous to continue flying at a high speed without enough fuel, which is one reason why some economies are attempting to “de-risk” their trade by shifting supply chains away from China, which is currently more than 140 economies’ main trading partner.
Western observers tend to focus on criticizing Chinese leaders’ rhetoric and decisions. But pointing out the errors in the forecasts that form the basis of Chinese policy may be more constructive. For the country’s sake, the decisions made at the upcoming Third Plenum of the Communist Party of China must reflect reality, not more pie-in-the-sky predictions.
Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of Big Country with an Empty Nest (China Development Press, 2013).
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2023.
www.project-syndicate.org
Public matchmaking has been a long-standing tradition in China, where older individuals gather in parks to find a partner for their children or grandchildren through personal ads. This tradition has now been taken over by young Chinese of Generation Z. Instead of presenting themselves, they promote the virtues of their cats in public spaces. Unlike traditional criteria such as height or income, factors like breed, fur color or cute personality traits come into play. The trend was initiated by a social media app from Shanghai and it has evolved into a nationwide, ironic protest against the societal pressure to get married.
De-risking remains the top priority in dealing with China, even in research cooperation on key digital topics such as artificial intelligence. According to a new study, the output of joint publications between European and Chinese researchers in this field continues to rise steadily.
The study is part of an EU project aimed at determining in which areas collaboration is “desirable, possible or impossible” – in other words, finding the balance between creating knowledge and minimizing the risk of misuse, such as China using the results for surveillance or military purposes.
Unlike the United States, Europe remains relatively open to collaboration, explained the study’s authors to Christiane Kuehl. This increases the interest of Chinese institutions in finding European partners. However, informed decisions on a case-by-case basis are necessary to exclude risks.
China’s first self-developed drilling ship is said to be capable of drilling holes up to 11,000 meters deep through the Earth’s crust into the upper mantle. If successful, it would be a unique record in human history, potentially providing new insights into processes leading to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the movement of tectonic plates.
However, it’s not only about scientific achievements; there’s also a prestige element. Similar to the race to the moon, several nations are in intense competition to reach the Earth’s mantle, as Joern Petring writes – but so far, without success. The Soviets came closest in the 1970s, reaching a depth of 12,262 meters on the Kola Peninsula. However, they also didn’t reach the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the underlying mantle.
Research collaboration between the EU and China continues to increase even during times of de-risking. This resulted from a recent study on joint publications by European and Chinese researchers on digital topics and artificial intelligence in various disciplines. According to the study, the output of co-publications has been consistently increasing since 2011. The vast majority of tech-related cooperation, 65 percent, focused on applied sciences – research aimed at practical solutions – followed by natural sciences at 18 percent.
The study is part of the EU project ReConnect China, which aims to determine in which fields cooperation between the EU and China is “desirable, possible or impossible”. The researchers examine collaborations in science and technology, economics and trade, as well as governance and foreign policy, with a focus on the key disciplines and institutions in China and the EU, including the UK, Norway and Switzerland (EU-27/AC). The ultimate goal is to create independent knowledge for a resilient approach to the People’s Republic, fostering higher China expertise, even in specialized areas.
To do this, the authors combed through the scientific citation database “Web of Science” from the research firm Clarivate – specifically using keywords related to digital topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and big data. The entire study revolves exclusively around these tech aspects, covering collaborations in various fields: For the period from 2011 to 2022, the researchers found tens of thousands of co-publications related to their focus.
While the United States still leads, they have been publishing less with China since 2021. In 2022, according to the study, co-publications between Europe and China already surpassed those between the USA and China. “We believe that this downward trend is related, among other things, to the larger geopolitical situation and the tense relationship between China and the USA,” says Philipp Brugner, one of the authors of the study, in an interview with Table.Media.
“China’s interest is, therefore, to increasingly focus on Europe because we are more accessible in research cooperation and the rhetoric towards China is not as harsh yet,” says Brugner. “We need to be very aware of this interest – and when there are inquiries, look much more closely than we have in recent years.” The goal is to prevent misuse: Especially the digital applications covered in the study could easily be used for surveillance or military purposes outside the agreed research purpose.
However, Brugner does not believe that Europe will turn away from research cooperation with China as clearly as the USA currently is; rather, it will maintain a balance. “I think we will proceed very selectively in the future.” The authors recommend greater awareness of risks with the aim of making informed decisions. However, they explicitly do not advocate for stopping cooperation.
According to the study, co-publications in applied sciences focused mainly on the following sub-disciplines:
In the natural sciences, physics and astronomy dominated cooperation (seven percent). Another significant field was clinical medicine (also seven percent).
The researchers also explored who collaborates with whom. They found 17,000 institutions in the EU-27/AC and China involved in joint publications. In Europe, this mainly includes universities and institutes from Germany, the UK and France. The authors then focused on the most active institutions.
They noticed that on the Chinese side, the state-owned Academy of Sciences dominated (with over 4,600 co-publications between 2011 and 2022), followed by Beijing’s Tsinghua University (just over 1,900) and Shanghai Jiaotong University (just under 1,600).
In Europe, especially universities from the UK cooperate. 44 percent of co-publications between the EU-27/AC and China had at least one author from the United Kingdom – more than Germany (15 percent) and France (11 percent) combined. Among the top 25 universities involved in co-publications with China, the study identified six outside the UK, including the Technical University of Munich, the Swiss ETH Zurich, the Delft University of Technology from the Netherlands, and three Scandinavian universities.
“The high participation of the UK surprised us,” says co-author Gábor Szüdi. According to him, this is due to the high level and good reputation of universities there and the English language, not so much political preferences. The researchers found the most intense bilateral collaboration between the University of Oxford and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with 189 co-publications. They also identified a dynamic relationship between TUM and Shanghai’s Tongji University, with 61 joint publications.
Chinese researchers did not specifically seek cooperation with politically inclined states such as Hungary, according to Szüdi. “They want to cooperate with the very best, even in Germany or the Netherlands.” Generally, collaboration is concentrated on a few countries and institutes. In Eastern Europe, only a few institutes collaborate with China; a significant exception is the very active Polish Academy of Sciences.
This corresponds to an observation the authors made in the data. “We suspect that partnerships are deliberately formed with universities whose name may not be the biggest overall but are leading in a niche discipline or technology,” says Brugner. This could be rewarding for both sides. However, he also warns: In general, one must “learn to deal better with this type of intelligence, meaning to understand that some inquiries do not happen by chance.” China observes the research and technology sector in Europe and then knocks very specifically where there may still be a missing piece for research and development to achieve its technological maturity breakthrough.
With a new specialized ship, China seeks to penetrate the Earth’s crust and reach into the mantle. The vessel, christened “Mengxiang” (Dream), China’s first self-developed drilling ship, embarked on its maiden test voyage last Monday, as reported by the state news agency Xinhua.
The colossal ship, nearly 180 meters long and 33 meters wide, is designed to cover 15,000 nautical miles and operate for 120 days without returning to port. However, the ship’s alleged drilling capability is the most impressive aspect. According to Xinhua, it can drill holes up to 11,000 meters deep, making it by far the leading vessel in this regard.
Through such deep drilling, scientists could obtain direct samples from the Earth’s mantle, potentially providing new insights into the processes leading to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the movement of tectonic plates.
The previous record for deep-sea drilling was set in 2019 by the Japanese ship “Chikyu“, reaching a depth of 3,250 meters. The aging US research ship “Joides Resolution” recently reached a depth of around 2,000 meters. Both ships are part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), a collaboration of 20 countries exploring the ocean together.
Now, China also joins the competition with the “Mengxiang” and appears to have significant ambitions. The ship can “drill through the Earth’s crust into the upper mantle”, according to Xinhua, citing unnamed sources. If successful, China would be the first nation to accomplish this complex feat.
Generations of scientists have worked on exploring the interior of our planet. Similar to the race to the moon during the Cold War, there has been an intense competition to reach the Earth’s mantle, but so far, without success.
The Earth’s crust is the outermost layer and forms the solid surface on which we live. It extends from the Earth’s surface downward to the Mohorovičić Discontinuity (short “Moho”). This is the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the underlying mantle.
The ultimate goal for geologists is to penetrate the Moho, whose depth varies significantly depending on the geographical location. While on land, drilling would often need to reach 30 to 50 kilometers deep to reach the Moho, it is about five to ten kilometers at the seafloor.
For this reason, the US attempted ocean drilling in the 1960s. The “Mohole” project took place in the Pacific Ocean. Despite some scientific successes, it was discontinued before reaching the Moho due to high costs and technical difficulties.
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union launched the “Kola Superdeep Borehole” project on the Kola Peninsula, reaching a depth of 12,262 meters. It remains the deepest borehole in the world to this day, but it also did not reach the Moho.
While international research on the Earth’s crust continued, other methods proved more efficient in exploring the properties of the mantle. Seismological studies, for example, have provided valuable insights.
However, the International Ocean Discovery Program has not abandoned its original goal. Efforts persist to reach the Earth’s mantle. The race to the center of the Earth now enters the next round with the Chinese.
Nevertheless, Beijing does not hide the fact that, in addition to scientific interests, it also pursues economic interests. The “Mengxiang” is intended to help exploit energy resources in the sea and contribute to “national energy security”. With this goal in mind, drilling is taking place not only in the ocean but also on land.
Chinese engineers began a new deep drilling project last July. They aim to drill a hole 10,520 meters deep into the Earth’s crust in the Sichuan Basin in southwestern China. The region is a significant gas-producing area, and the engineers expect natural gas deposits there. Shortly before that, China launched another drilling project in the Tarim Basin in northwestern China. The super-drilling is set to go down to a depth of 11,100 meters.
Earlier this month, the ratings agency Moody’s cut its outlook on China’s sovereign credit rating to negative, citing risks from a deepening property crisis and a prolonged growth slowdown. In fact, Moody’s now predicts that annual economic growth will fall to 4 percent in 2024 and 2025, before slowing further, to 3.8 percent, on average, for the rest of the decade. Potential growth will decline to 3.5 percent by 2030. A major driver of this slowdown will be “weaker demographics.”
Not surprisingly, China’s leaders said they were “disappointed” with the downgrade, claiming that the economy still has “huge development resilience and potential” and will remain a powerful engine of global growth. But China’s assessment of its potential growth is based on deeply flawed forecasts.
On August 24, 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping convened nine economists – including former World Bank Chief Economist Justin Yifu Lin – for a symposium that would guide the 14th Five-Year Plan for economic and social development. Based on that discussion, Xi declared that it was “completely possible” for China to double its GDP per capita over the next 16 years.
Lin explained the logic behind this optimistic forecast. In 2019, China’s GDP per capita was only 22.6% of the level in the United States (calculated by purchasing power parity). Germany was at the same level in 1946, Japan in 1956, and South Korea in 1985, and their economies grew at an average rate of 9.4 percent, 9.6 percent, and 9 percent, respectively, over the subsequent 16 years.
Even hampered by low population growth and a trade and technology war with the US, Lin concluded, China’s potential annual growth – 8 percent in 2019-35, and 6 percent in 2036-50 – could easily translate into real annual growth of 6 percent and 4 percent, respectively. Per this forecast, China’s GDP would surpass that of the US in 2030, and be twice as large by 2049, at which point there would be four times as many Chinese as Americans.
Lin had previously made even more optimistic predictions. In 2005, he forecast that China’s economy would be 1.5-2 times larger than America’s by 2030, and that there would be five times as many Chinese. In 2008, he was even more sanguine, predicting that China’s economy would be 2.5 times the size of America’s by 2030. In 2011, he was back to forecasting that China’s economy would be twice as large as that of the US in 2030, and in 2014, he returned to his 2005 forecast that China’s economy would be 1.5-2 times larger.
Over the years, China’s leaders have embraced Lin’s forecasts as a kind of vindication of their political system and governance model. “The world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century,” Xi declared in 2021, “but time and situation are in our favor.” Similarly, Ma Zhaoxu, the vice minister for foreign affairs, pledged last year that, in the face of efforts to impede China’s rise, Chinese diplomats would uphold the “spirit of struggle” to ensure the country’s continued development. During the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders eagerly presented China’s response as a reflection of its “institutional advantage.”
But, however appealing to China’s leaders Lin’s economic forecasts may be, they have proved wildly wrong, not least because they fail to account for China’s bleak demographic outlook. Both a higher median age and a higher proportion of people over 64 are negatively correlated with growth, and on both points, China is doing far worse than the three countries to which Lin compares it.
When Germany’s GDP per capita was equivalent to 22.6 percent that of the US, its median age was 34. In Japan and South Korea, the median age was just 24. After those 16 subsequent years of strong growth, the median age in the three countries stood at 35, 30, and 32, respectively. Contrast that with China, where the median age was 41 in 2019, and will reach 49 in 2035.
Likewise, at the beginning of the 16-year period to which Lin refers, the proportion of people over 64 in Germany, Japan, and South Korea was 8 percent, 5 percent, and 4 percent, respectively; at the end, it stood at 12 percent, 7 percent, and 7 percent. In China, that proportion was 13 percent in 2019 and will be 25 percent in 2035. In the 16 years after the proportion of people over 64 reached 13 percent in Germany (in 1966) and Japan (in 1991), these economies’ average annual growth was only 2.9 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
Moreover, in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, the labor force (aged 15-59) began to decline in the 12th, 38th, and 31st years after their per capita GDP equaled 22.6 percent that of the US. China’s began to decline in 2012.
If one imagines China’s economy as an airplane, the 1978 launch of the policy of reform and opening up would have been what ignited the fuel – the young workers – that enabled the economy to take off and fly at high speeds for three decades. But, in 2012, the fuel began to run low, causing the plane to decelerate.
Instead of adjusting to their new reality, the Chinese authorities – heeding the advice of economists like Lin – continued to lean on the throttle by investing heavily in real estate, thereby creating a massive property bubble. It is obviously dangerous to continue flying at a high speed without enough fuel, which is one reason why some economies are attempting to “de-risk” their trade by shifting supply chains away from China, which is currently more than 140 economies’ main trading partner.
Western observers tend to focus on criticizing Chinese leaders’ rhetoric and decisions. But pointing out the errors in the forecasts that form the basis of Chinese policy may be more constructive. For the country’s sake, the decisions made at the upcoming Third Plenum of the Communist Party of China must reflect reality, not more pie-in-the-sky predictions.
Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of Big Country with an Empty Nest (China Development Press, 2013).
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2023.
www.project-syndicate.org
Public matchmaking has been a long-standing tradition in China, where older individuals gather in parks to find a partner for their children or grandchildren through personal ads. This tradition has now been taken over by young Chinese of Generation Z. Instead of presenting themselves, they promote the virtues of their cats in public spaces. Unlike traditional criteria such as height or income, factors like breed, fur color or cute personality traits come into play. The trend was initiated by a social media app from Shanghai and it has evolved into a nationwide, ironic protest against the societal pressure to get married.
