>I now believe China’s actual population may be as low as 300–400 million

that we now live in a world where people are confident enough to make claims this stupid in front of a camera should frighten anyone.

Some basic logic, if China had the population of the United States it would have magically acquired the per capita economic output of the US in ~30 years, consume several times the energy and food it imports and somehow have produced several cities the size of Tokyo. The fact that China produces ~50% of the world's ships and has the manufacturing output of of the G7 combined is impressive with over a billion people, but hey they must have some space age technology to do it with 3% of the world's population!

In philosophy there's a concept called the coherence theory of truth, if you want to know if something is true check if it doesn't defy basic logic or other facts you know, great tool instead of believing what youtubers say

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pocksuppet an hour ago | parent [-]

Why is it impossible that China acquired the per capita economic output of the US?

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Barrin92 an hour ago | parent [-]

because that would mean virtually every place in the country would look like Singapore, it would be significantly richer ,per capita, than Taiwan, millions of economic migrants would have left the country for no reason, and I suppose also be conjured out of thin air given that the Chinese diaspora is about 40 million people large. Which is shockingly enough comparable to Indians abroad, not Americans

	▲	pocksuppet an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I don't agree. The USA has the economic output of the USA, but not every place in the USA looks like Singapore.