Every time I post something negative about China, I lose most of my Chinese audience. Well, so be it. This blog is about the truth, not trying to please or conversely displease anyone. Since I only follow the news very loosely, I tend to focus on the subjects I understand, related to finance, data, science and sociology.
And here we are once again. It has been know for a long time that the data coming from China are bogus. Currently the GDP of the country is not only not growing by 5 or 6% a year, but it may in fact not be growing at all.
There are several reasons for that, but the main one relates to the 2016 implosion of the huge real estate bubble which like in Japan is having a disastrous impact on investment and growth.
This in turn is having devastating consequences on young people who have no way of expressing their unhappiness at not being able to find jobs, marry and join society. So we end up with grass-root movements like Tang ping (Chinese: 躺平, 'lying flat') and bai lan, (Chinese: 摆烂, "Let it Rot') which are almost exactly like their Japanese equivalent of Ikikomori, (引きこもり) where the mostly male young adults, end up withdrawing from social life and seeking extreme isolation, typically staying confined in their homes for six months or longer.
Same causes, same consequences. Initially, I expected China to find a solution to the problem, unlike Japan, since the country has tools of coercion that Japan does not have access to. And sure enough, companies did find a way to solve the problem by putting even more pressure on the few who ended up finding a job, using AI to measure their productivity and training the AI to do their job, compounding the dissatisfaction of a generation of young people who consequently found a clever answer to the pressure: Digital Sabotage!
If you are interested, please look at the video below. It is interesting and shows what happen when you try to cross a whole generation. (PS: In a similar but unrelated subject, try to imagine what will happen in Europe next year when tech savvy under 16 are confronted to Social media interdiction!)
Something Is Spreading Like WILDFIRE Across China — And It’s About to Get Worse
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