You have not seen the latest in robotics. Robots cannot replace people, that's a fact for now, but robots can replace the 100 million this article suggest.
In the end it may not fill all the needs, and we do need some immigration, but it's no where near 100 million.
As a side note, immigration in China is already happening, though much reform is still needed. For one thing, don't even have an anti discrimination law, that puts us at the same level as the Italians.
No, robots may be able to replace certain skill sets required in Humans. Perhaps in the near future, we won't need drivers. But humans will still remain the single fundamental unit of production. What you can replace through robots, other countries can as well.
1, we have 30 years experience manufacturing for western countries. not only we are the biggest, we are the most efficient manufacture.
2, we have monopoly on manufacturing ecosystem, when every component is produced locally, it doesn't make sense to move away the assembly line.
3, we have most major ports in the world and they are all pretty close to the US
maybe if US and EU consumption goes down will impact our export, but we are not worried anyone can replace us.
1. Today, yes you are. But the cheap end manufacturing is already going out, and will soon in some time set up supply chains in SE Asia and S Asia.
2. True. But again, as the labor costs rise, not everything will be produced locally.
3. Ports can be built. Rather it is China itself that is proposing to build major ports in many countries. These are infrastructure bottle necks that can usually be corrected by right policy.
Immigrants will simply take advantage of Chinese hospitality and kindness to foreigners, and spit on the people and culture. Has no one learned anything from 2,000 years of history? Someone should investigate that "researcher".
This is a myth that China is not an immigrant country. Rather, some time back, China was the biggest immigrant country. Everyone, and Anyone who can come to China was welcomed. China was very tolerant. Obviously, at that time due to technology limits, only people from neighbouring areas could come to China, hence most of the people were anyways Mongloids in physical appearance.
Tell me one thing, What does being Chinese mean for you? Why can't there be Black Chinese, and White Chinese?
Obviously they should assimilate in China. That is expected of them. But, they would generally just enrich China.
It is a Taiwan paper which has made quite a few unbelievable claims in the past and frankly some of the claims are plain insults to people's intelligence.
For the sake of discussion, here is a few things on the aging population issue.
First, aging population is a world wide phenomenon for countries with good economic development. This is because good economic development typically require a working population that requires longer time and more expensive to train, this lead families to naturally have less children. The better economic development also means longer life expectancy, thus more old people. China does have to gradually face the problem of an aging population, but to be honest, this is really no worse than what dozens of other countries have already faced.
Second, China still have more cushion space for aging population issue. For example, the current retirement age in China ranges from 50 to 60, where typical retirement age in western countries are 65. The percentage of old people in China is also significantly lower, comparing to countries like Japan and Germany. (This is partially because the biggest population boom in the past century around the world is the 50s, where the ending of WWII led to a great increase in birthrate. However, China's population control policies did not come into effect until 1970s, thus giving China about two more decades than its western counterparts.)
Third, China is already transforming its industry to include more automation and higher efficiency. In fact, the transformation started more than a decade ago, long before these articles jump on the "aging population train".
Fourth, these articles constantly make the assumption that China would not change its policy in accordance to its need. For example, the article constantly harp on population control, despite the fact the family planning policy in China has been changed for a few years already. This is like saying "You are driving on a mountain road. You will be running off a cliff if you don't turn the driving wheel". It is technically true, but at the same time utterly pointless.
And this is not the first of such articles from wantchinatimes or epochtime, nor would it be the last.
1. True, but the problem is very severe in China, because it artificially decreased its population by birth control, and it is East Asian. There has been no country on Earth that has had its workforce beginning to decline, so early like that of China. Already the East Asians are very notorious for lost fertility ratio, be it in the US or in their own countries.
2. True. But will have only a limited effect.
3. Automation doesn't negate the effect of declining Work force. See Japan. Due to declining work force they are left stranded. Automation can only go to a limit for increasing productivity, no beyond.
4. True, they make the assumption. But that is what we have to make until China reverses its policy.
Maybe this will help, instead of more immigrants.
China to start over 30 pilot smart manufacturing projects in 2015
2015-03-18 18:44
BEIJING, Mar. 18 (Xinhua Finance) -- China will kick off more than 30 pilot smart manufacturing demonstration projects this year and will expand the scope of the pilot program in 2017 to promote effective experiences and modes across the nation, according to an announcement released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Wednesday.
The demonstration projects are aimed at forming a smart manufacturing system and a public services platform, according to the ministry. The projects also set the target of reducing operating cost by 20 percent, shortening product development period by 20 percent, raising production efficiency by 20 percent, lowering nonstandard product rate by 10 percent and enhancing energy use efficiency by 4 percent.
Again the logic is simple.
Automation and technology push out humans in some sectors and increase efficiency per worker. Hence, they increase efficiency per worker.
But, total value will be number of workers * efficiency.
China's per capita GDP is 8k dollars right now. Japan is 40 K. So, yes there is scope for increase in productivity which is happening right now, but labor also counts.
Don't forget in today's world it is very hard to differentiate. Which means that if there was perfect globalization, productivity per worker would be the same across the world. Obviously there is not perfect one, yet globalization does exist, which is why countries will low productivity will find it very easy to move up the chain.
