The median Chinese in 2025 is also much poorer (edit: and much older [2] and less educated [3]) than the median Japanese in the 1980s or 1990s.

China has built a successful tech pipeline, but it doesn't translate to significant prosperity in a country where median disposable household incomes are around $400/mo [0] - much lower than their peers in Thailand [1]. And China's HDI only caught up with Thailand's over the past 2-3 years, and China's GDP per capita has been stagnant for 4 financial years now.

This does NOT imply Chinese collapse, but it does highlight real issues that exist with the China story.

From a power projection perspective, China has capabilities that very few nations have and can tie with the US, but that has not translated to mass prosperity in the way growth in 1970s and 1980s Japan did. It is still an open question about whether or not China "Japanifies" or not.

China is now at a crossroads, similar to what South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia faced in the 1990s.

As long as the Xi admin remains avowedly opposed to what he termed "Welfarism" ("福利主义典范国家，中产塌陷、贫富分化、社会撕裂、民粹喧嚣，这不乏警示— 防止落入“福利主义”养懒汉陷阱"), Chinese growth will sputter.

[0] - https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202501/t202501...

[1] - https://www.nso.go.th/nsoweb/storage/survey_detail/2023/2023...

[2] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/median-age

[3] - https://globaldatalab.org/shdi/table/msch/CHN+JPN/?levels=1+...

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paganel 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> The median Chinese in 2025 is also much poorer than the median Japanese in the 1980s or 1990s.

Yes, and that’s a big plus for China, it means that there’s still room for productive growth. The also means that the price of labor will still continue to be competitive.

	▲	alephnerd 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> it means that there’s still room for productive growth The median Chinese in 2025 is also much older than the median Japanese was in 1990 when their bubble burst. Without welfare expansion and a broad project to increase the prosperity of the median Chinese household, growth will sputter - as it already is [0] Xi's admin remains avowedly opposed to what he termed "Welfarism" ("福利主义典范国家，中产塌陷、贫富分化、社会撕裂、民粹喧嚣，这不乏警示— 防止落入“福利主义”养懒汉陷阱") [1], and almost all stimulus provided is supply-side. Chinese households need to either earn enough so they can save for a rainy day and consume, or the state needs to dramatically increase the scope of it's social safety net to incentivize spending. China needs a "New Deal" style welfare reform if it wants to escape Japanification at this stage. > The also means that the price of labor will still continue to be competitive. It's isn't anymore. China's costs have caught up with those of Mexico and Malaysia's, so cost sensitive manufacturing began leaving over a decade ago to Vietnam, Mexico, and India. High value manufacturing has taken off in China, but generates very few jobs, because a heavily automated factory requires much fewer and much more educated employees, which locks out a large number of Chinese as the average age of schooling amongst working age Chinese is around 8-9 years [2] [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-economy-slumps-au... [1] - http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2021/1116/c40531-32283350.htm... [2] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-years-of-schoolin...

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dworks 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It definitely has resulted in mass prosperity.