Drawing trite parallels is very ha-ha, but we have to remember that while Japan only has half the population of the US, China’s population is much more. It’s a little suspicious arguing that one Japanese person is somehow destined to be more productive and inventive than two American people; it is even more suspicious arguing the same for one American and five Chinese.
The parallels are downright freaky. Think about it:
* Sense that they will rule the world
* Incredibly bubbly real estate market
* Exporting this bubble to North America west coast
* Huge bets on AI
* Zombie companies (SOEs)
* Rapidly aging worforce
Yes, there are some difference, China is much larger than Japan but it is also much poorer than Japan (on a per capita basis). The country as a whole isn't that well educated (compulsory education only goes to 9th grade, extremely uneven resources applied to rural areas and different cities).
Who knows how this will play off, I'm guessing a China crash will be much worse in scale than Japan coming down in the late 80s/early 90s, but China will also be able to recover much more quickly after it happens given there is still room for development.
While I don't have solid economic numbers (good luck with that in China), if I had a to guess it would make that ratio still one American to two Chinese.
Here's a model that I'll use to back up that idea:
Top 5 US CSAs: NY, LA, Chicago, DC, SF Bay Area: 70.8 million people.
Top 5 Chinese Metro Areas: Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chongqing, Beijing, Hangzhou: 149 million.
Oh yeah I'm not saying the model is great, but if someone wants to discount the 1 to 4.3 ratio, that's the estimate I'd throw out there.
And if we take in the half rural estimate, that'd already put it at 1 to 1 today (with lots of room for growth).
Agreed that Chongqing is fairly different (since it's forced "urbanization" due to the Three Gorges Dam). But I've heard a lot of people say Beijing and Shanghai make NYC look "small" in comparison.
Even LA and NY have lots of parts that many Americans may not consider as living "meaningfully in the present" from the point of view being able to work on advanced projects like "Fifth Generation" computing.
> Even LA and NY have lots of parts that many Americans may not consider as living "meaningfully in the present" from the point of view being able to work on advanced projects like "Fifth Generation" computing.
I could have put it clearer, but my understanding was that China still has a non-trivial population that is not involved in the "advanced economy," in a way that would surprise most Americans. That is, subsistence farming, less-than high school education, etc.
