October 1, 2024: China has the second largest economy, with a purported annual GDP of $18 trillion. This is second to the United States with $27 trillion. Chinese growth has been spectacular because their GDP in 2005 was only $2.3 trillion. Current per-capita income for China is $13,000 versus $84,000 for the United States. Despite its large economy, China has four times as many people and that lowers the per-capita income. The global average for all nations is $14,000. China's GDP growth rate has been spectacular with most of the growth taking place between 1980 and 2010. The Chinese GDP was only eleven percent of the Americans in 1960 but by 2023 was 65 percent of the United States. During the last decade growth has slowed because of a massive real estate speculation crisis and revelations that provincial officials had not been reporting accurately on their dismal and growing economic problems. The government could issue positive press releases, but the average Chinese knew what was going on, which led to reduced consumption and many with spare cash getting their money out of China. This is illegal but happens anyway thanks to the number of government officials willing to take a bribe. Then there was the population problem. There were not enough young workers and too many retired ones. This was the result of a 1980s population control effort that mandated couples could only have one child.

Several decades of enforcing the one child policy prevented China's population from spiraling out of control over the last few decades. But it also meant that there are now too many old people relative to too few young workers. This shortage first became visible after the 2020 covid19 pandemic hit China. Mandatory quarantines on urban areas forced many members of the working population to stay at home. This was enough to trigger a sustained economic depression that continues. President Xi Jinping took control of the situation and made it worse. Xi Jinping continues to mismanage the economy while making himself an unpopular dictator.

Meanwhile, the shortage of young workers has increased, as the first members of the one child generation reached working age. These workers demanded more money, and attention. Wages moved up rapidly, and there's still a shortage of workers. There's also a shortage of skilled people in the armed forces. Plenty of low skilled or inept volunteers, but not the ones that are most needed, and in demand.

The one child program has not only halted rapid growth of the Chinese population, but permanently changed perceptions of what the optimal family size should be. The enforcement of one child families was strictly enforced in urban areas, while those in rural areas could usually have two children. These policies forced parents to lavish more attention on fewer children. As a result, the children were better educated and accustomed to a higher standard of living. While chided as little princes, these youngsters were more economically successful than their parents and brought a new verve to the economy and culture.

Suddenly most Chinese came to believe that this was one of the secrets of Western success. The economic superiority of the foreigners had long been something of a mystery. Chinese feel inherently superior to those smelly apes with the round eyes and bad manners. In fact, economists, and other social scientists, including Chinese ones, always understood the value of small families. Most Chinese were unconvinced and the one-child policy provided the needed example to demonstrate the economic superiority of smaller families. This created several generations of labor shortages and the growing fiscal and political costs of supporting a huge, by Chinese standards number of retired elderly workers who had to be taken care of. All this has caused a halt to spectacular economic growth and sustained economic stagnation that supreme leader Xi Jinping cannot find a solution for.

Meanwhile President Xi Jinping has consolidated power, with significant constitutional amendments allowing for extended presidential terms. This centralization of authority has been unpopular along with the growing use of surveillance state techniques. The growing prevalence of government surveillance cameras and effective facial recognition technology has made it difficult for people to protest unpopular policies. That increases the degree of discontent.

China continues to expand its military capabilities with larger investments in modernizing the People's Liberation Army (PLA). This includes advancements in cyber warfare, space technology, and naval power, which are pivotal to China's strategic ambitions in the South China Sea and beyond. The PLA's assertiveness in regional disputes, coupled with its global Belt and Road Initiative, reflects China's long-term strategic vision of enhancing its geopolitical influence while minimizing direct confrontations.

Religion, while constitutionally protected, is tightly regulated, with the state exercising stringent control over religious practices. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promotes a secular ideology, often clamping down on religious groups perceived as threats to its authority. This has led to international criticism, particularly regarding the treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang and the repression of Christian congregations. Despite these restrictions, religious communities continue to adapt, finding ways to practice their faith within the bounds of state oversight.

Past mistakes are catching up with China as it continues its post-Cold War policy of aggressive territorial claims and risking, but not going to, war with its neighbors. Internally China is creating the fictional Big Brother surveillance state of the novel 1984. This has more to do with internal politics and the need to distract an increasingly wealthy and concerned population from local problems with corruption, pollution and ineffective government. Domestic unrest has been growing louder and more visible to Chinese and the world. Examples include nationwide protests against rigid covid19 shutdowns. Before that it was the large-scale freedom protests in Hong Kong during most of 2019 and into 2020. This was about Chinese abuse of the special status Hong Kong is supposed to enjoy until 2047, but it is also about the corruption and financial recklessness in the rest of the country. China ignored the Hong Kong protestors and is dismantling the guaranteed, until 2047, freedoms for Hong Kong. The widespread covid19 protests were another matter, so the government backed down and at the end of 2022 is still seeking a way to regain total control of the population. Outside China, the government pursues an ancient, and often quite successful, strategy that emphasizes what appear to be high-risk policies but are actually long-range efforts to wear down the opposition and eventually assume control of the objective with little risk or cost. Or so China believed until the Americans, and many other victims, pushed back.