Lyingflatism and China’s double crisis

Lyingflatism 

Translated by Menze Zhu

 

　　China's national power has been shaken since 2018. One irresistible factor is the aging of the population. China has 149 deeply aged cities, iteration plus fewer newborn children, which are resulting in a double crisis resonance. Another irresistible factor is Xi Jinping authorities' recent regulatory measures on the capitals to produce disruption in the economy. Many mid-aged private entrepreneurs retired in order to avoid the disaster. As a result, China is entering the time of Lyingflatism.

　　The result of China's seventh population census has been released to the public. Although there are many loopholes and watery data, some of the data reflect the tragic situation that has jumped off the pages. The result shows that 149 cities in the northeast of China, central China, the Yangtze River Delta, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration have entered a deep aging era.

　　Population aging, also known as aging society, refers to the phenomenon of increasing median age due to a lower birth rate and/or longer life expectancy. The aging rate of a society is calculated as the ratio of 65-year-olds to the population. According to the internationally accepted classification standard, when the percentage of population aged 65 and above exceeds 7% in a country or region, it represents the entry of aging; reaching 14%, it is deep aging; and exceeding 20%, it is a super-aging society.

　　On September 7, China's official media said that China's population aging is accelerating, and the situation varies greatly from region to region and city to city. In terms of regional distribution, among the 149 cities, a total of 41 (27.5%) are from the eastern coastal region; 36 (24.2%) are from the northeast, and 72 (48.3%) are from the central and western regions.

　　From the provincial point of view, 149 cities are distributed in 22 provinces, among which 7 provinces have 10 or more deeply aging cities.

　　Among them, Sichuan has 17 cities with deep aging; 14 out of 16 cities in Shandong province have entered deep aging, and the population of Shandong aged 65 and above has reached 15.36 million, which is the largest total aging population in the whole China.

　　The aging of the northeast region is affected by the out-migration of the young population.  Data show that a total of 36 cities in the three northeastern provinces have all entered the stage of deep aging.

　　In contrast, the Pearl River Delta and Fujian coast have a large inflow of population, and thus have a relatively low level of aging.

　　For the Chinese Communist authorities, various crises are gradually emerging in Chinese society, but there are two irresistible crises that can shake the country's power: the demographic crisis and the aging crisis.

　　In China, where social stratification has long been solidified, young people can see the ceiling as soon as they enter society and have no hope of working hard, so they choose not to fall in love, not to get married, and not to have children, a low-desire life state, the so-called "lyingflatism".

　　As a result, the double crisis has resonated, and China's population is becoming fewer children and aging as an important trend of social development, which will become the basic economic state of China for a long period of time in the future.

　　But the Chinese people are getting old before they get rich, and it is difficult for society to provide adequate living for them.

　　The Chinese media cited data from the China Pension Actuarial Report 2019-2050 in an article titled "CASS report: pensions may run out of balance by 2035, experts advise young people to plan their pension investments early". The article says that over the next 30 years, the current balance of the basic pension insurance fund for urban employees nationwide will begin to dive faster and faster after barely maintaining a positive number for a few years.  With the deficit growing larger and larger, the basic pension insurance funds will run out of accumulated balance by 2035.

　　The article says: "If we calculate according to the retirement age of 60, the earliest group of people born after 1980 will only be 55 years old in 2035, not reaching the retirement age. In other words, those people born after 1980 are likely to become the first generation to receive no pension."

　　Judging from much information, the problem of pension depletion will come early.

　　In addition to this, another factor that is an irresistible factor is the recent regulatory measures by the Xi Jinping administration that have disrupted the economy to some extent.  Private entrepreneurs have taken refuge to escape the disaster.

　　Xi Jinping's administration has recently proposed "shared wealth" and "third distribution", which have become buzzwords in the official media and self-publishing. This, coupled with the previous purges in several industries and the "generosity" of many wealthy entrepreneurs, has created a sense of "a storm coming down from the top".

　　Chinese e-commerce giant Jingdong Group recently announced that Liu Qiandong stepped down from his position as president and was promoted by Xu Lei. This is another example of a handful of large private companies "retiring before they get old" following Jack Ma, Zhang Yiming, and Huang Zheng. In the future, more wealthy entrepreneurs will hand over their power to save their lives and wait for the "redistribution" of the Chinese Communist Party.

　　The entrepreneurs who have retired are in their best age of life. Jack Ma was 55 when he officially retired, Zhang Yiming was only 38 when he stepped down as CEO of Byte Jump, Huang Zheng was only 41 when he stepped down as CEO of Jindo, and Liu Qiangdong was 47 when he stepped down as an executive of Jingdong's main operating company in April 2020. This wave of private-sector bigwigs is retiring before they get old, just as the Chinese Communist Party authorities are stepping up their supervision of "anti-monopoly" and other issues.

The regulators frequently interviewed and cracked down on a number of industries and companies, and with the official media pushing them to do so, private entrepreneurs had to "give generously": Jitterbug founder Zhang Yiming donated 500 million yuan to the government, Tencent, and Alibaba each pledged 100 billion yuan, Meituan CEO Wang Xing donated $2.27 billion to a private foundation. Xiaomi's Lei Jun also donated $2.2 billion to a private foundation. Pinedo's Huang Zheng, who donated $1.85 billion for the first time and another $370 million for rural poverty alleviation programs for the second time, has also pledged to donate the full amount of the company's net profit in the coming year ...... Bloomberg statistics show that Chinese companies and billionaires have donated more than $37 billion so far this year.