According to Nationmaster, 22% of the world's poor live in China. I don't know if that percentage will increase--times are tough all over--but the raw number most probably will. And this isn't China of 1978, when the entire population was poor. Now, the 100 million who are living on less than $1 a day have middle class neighbours and rich Chinese people on TV.
Why am I so pessimistic about China regarding the next 5 years? These are smart people, industrious and entreprenurial. Well, partly it's because the rest of the world will let them down. In 2007, China's exports were $1.2 trillion. That compares to their total GDP in 2008 of $4.84 trillion. So far this year, exports are down by a quarter. So far during this recession, worldwide job losses are 50 million. Of that number, 20 million are Chinese.
So we have a deteriorating financial situation in a country with brand new access to communications and growing inequality. Sound like a recipe for social unrest? Add in government corruption. China is ranked at the same level as Romania. China is embarrassingly and publicly failing in its efforts to control corruption--this article in Asia Times is just more of the same. And Chinese people now see and hear this every day--and not just in the newspapers, as China has the most internet users in the world, at 300 million.
China desperately needs for its citizens to spend more and save less to compensate for reduced exports. Chinese people are famous for saving. This is the most publicized economic downturn in history, being covered like an American Super Bowl or the World Cup. Does anyone think the Chinese are going to pull their yuan out from under their mattress and buy a Haier TV on the heels of 20 million job losses and 10,000 factory closures? I do not.
More on China later.
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