At the moment China is struggling a little economically.
Very cheritably phrased, I think.
China has a massive real estate bubble. Real estate made up ca. 25% of their economy. Reason being that people are not allowed to put their money into other investment classes. For decades ghost cities were built and people trusted in the paper value of concrete. Now the chickens come home to roost.
Unemployment is really high, almost 50% (according to unofficial counts) among people below 25. They have a massive surplus of newly graduated and graduating youth unable to find adequate employment. As I wrote in other threads, elite overproduction is a sure-fire way to create societal discord.
There are massive demographic (birth rate now stands at 1.09) and environmental (exploitation of the environment during the boom years, climate change) time bombs. Many people are of very poor health (bad working/living conditions, stress, widespread tobacco abuse) and the health care system is not up to the challenges.
And it is still a developing country with modern cities surrounded by underdeveloped rural areas.
Plus, the totalitarian system and the culture don't allow for honest assesments and rectification of problems, unhampered scientific research and more recently increasingly, the pursuit of business enterprises.
It's one more country we must hope does not turn to outward aggression to deflect from internal strife.
And to a country like mine that relies heavily on a trade surplus fueled in large part by Chinese consumers, a weak Chinese economy is bad news for our own economy.
An interesting finding of historical science is that cultural habits of large and long-lived cultures are very stable. For millenia, after every revolution China has returned to what is, at its core and regardless of actual type of government, a hierarchical bureaucracy. So chances are high that it will stay that way long-term.
