Let's see just how well that worked out, shall we?
>In June 2023, the surveyed unemployment rate of young people between 16 and 24 years of age in urban areas of China ranged at 21.3 percent, up from 20.8 percent in the previous month.
>In 2022, S&P Global Ratings found that corporate debt in China reached nearly $29 trillion in the first quarter, the highest in the world and roughly equivalent to the size of the U.S. government’s total debt.
I suspect that's an artifact of what counts as "corporate" debt in china. LGFVs[1] count as corporate debt, but are more accurately classified as government. If you factor that out and reallocate that to government debt, and consider that the US has higher government debt as % of GDP than china, the two countries don't look too far off.
Conflating between national/gov vs total/aggregate debt. PRC national debt is ~75% of GDP vs US ~120%, total aggregate debt PRC ~270% vs US ~760%. Youth unemployment rate basically same as US @7.5%. PRC youth unemployment stats exclude 60% of youths in school unavailable for work, PRC youth unemployment using US bureau of labour definition is 8.5%. PRC debt is more managable than US on any metric that matters, meanwhile outcome of said debt is surplus talent and new infra. Opposite of what US is currently dealing with. US does seem to have advantage inflating away (i presume) dollar debt though, US aggregate debt high was like 860% during covid.
US is getting infrastructure and talent. STEM graduations are at an all time high. US is also building new chips and EVs. Construction job openings are at all time high.
Here's bloomberg on PRC National Bureau of Statistics:
>Over 33 million young people have entered the job market and more than six million of them are currently unemployed, NBS spokesman Fu Linghui told reporters in a briefing Thursday. The population of those aged 16 and 24 is about 96 million, but many are not looking for jobs because they’re still in school, he said.
6/33, youths entering job market = 18%+ (round up to 7/33 since "more than 6m" for 21% figure), aka the figure MSM narrative and PRC collapsist are fixating on
But it's really:
6-7/96m, total youths 66m either in education or not looking = 6-7%, aka in line with US Bureau of Labour Statistics BLS (~8%)
Now compare from from BLS 2022 report:
> The unemployment rate for youth was 8.5 percent in July 2022
AND
>The labor force participation rate for all youth was 60.4 percent in July 2022, little different from a year earlier.
Were people losing their shit over 40% US youth unemployment rate? No they quote the 8.5% from BLS in same report.
Also note PRC NBS statistic is URBAN youths, 16-24 population total is ~150m, there's about 60m rural youth not accounted for. Also note urban un/underemployment so far skews less skilled - basically service industry got fucked during covid so many low skilled youths got the shaft. TBF, rural youth unemployment probably bad, so would not be far fetched if PRC aggregate youth unemployment is also 40%+, but bluntly rural youth not really skilled cohorts driving up PRC economy. But also expect UBRAN youth unemployment statistics to increase, IMO 30-40%+ because one of the largest cohort of students are about to graduate (12m) into mediocre economy, which TBH even PRC with high 8% (vs projected 5%) growth is going to struggle to create that many jobs. For reference India youth unemployment is 45% from May, 16-24 is like 40% of Indian population pyramid, while only 15% for PRC. What's a bigger problem? PRC with 6m+ unemployed youths or India with 250m+? Why is western MSM and PRC collapcists wanking about about India replacing PRC instead of massively squandering what's left of their demographic divident. This isn't directed at you, just general comment on PRC reporting.
Now realize even at 30-40% youth unemployment in PRC, that's still employment for ~6-8m youths, especially skilled. Equal to about 2x US total tertiary graduation, while PRC generates ~5m STEM per year (9x more than US), and jobs in strategic S&T industries in PRC like semiconductors are booming. The TLDR is people in west meming about PRC youth unemployment should be TERRIFIED that PRC urban youth unemploymentis only 20%/6% because that's anywhere between 2-9x more skilled talent than US, especially in competitive high tech sectors.
On cancelling projects half way, yeah there's bad infra projects, just like US wastes stupid amount of resources trying to get things built only to not. Difference is PRC is left with a bunch of underutilized infra or worst case half finished buildings and wasted emissions and US is left with some richer paper pushers. They're both wasteful, but PRC waste has chance of future utility. And that PRC waste is make job for millions of low skill worker (by design) while US waste is directed towards bureacrats (again by capture/design).
The long TLDR from figures above is US can start emphasising STEM and construction, but won't be in the same league as PRC. PRC population base effect with poor TFR and even future shit TFR is STILL so high US can't boost STEM + immigration close to parity, and even less chance now that PRC talent is increasingly inaccessible to US due to geopolitics. Keep in mind next 24 years of PRC demographics already baked in, the kind of talent gap they're spitting out right now can be reasonably maintained for about 2 decades since birth from 2000+ is 9-12m per year. That's ~50-100M STEM, aka the greatest high skill demographic divident in human history. US population is projected to increase by 40m in that time frame. PRC employing 1/2 of future STEM talent in relevant fields is enough to compete. Like all the news of PRC climbing up value chains, leading in science and innovation indexes from last few years? Or moving from 1T to 18T economy. They did that by growing STEM from ~2M to ~17M STEM. US construction IMO even more hopeless, of course opennings are high, but where's the talent to fill and if talents there, the ability to cut tape and actually build. CHIPs fab already behind schedule. I'm sure US will get there eventually, but they have different hurdles, as does PRC. But PRC advantage is demographics (yes demographics, despite Zeihantards claims), as in skilled talent important in national building, and ability to get physical things build, even if it means building to much. PRC's has over capacity "problem", but the problem of excess is different from problem of paucity, which is what US is dealing with in terms of STEM shortage and inability to actually build.
I want to correct I messed up reading NBS calculation methods. PRC already use comparable youth unemployment calc as US.
But general point remains, PRC youth unemployment different kind of problem - it's reflection of state overcapacity, problem of excess is different from problem of paucity, which is what US is dealing with in terms of skilled talent shortage. PRC general employment ~5%, which means most youth either give up or end up in workforce eventually. People work if they have to work. The important consideration is if enough of them work in relevant sectors to push PRC up value chain, last few years show that is happening. Recent reports PRC moving up value chains, science and innovation indexes coincides with trend of increasing youth unemployment since it's lag effect / byproduct of PRC was spamming as many bodies into tertiary as possible. Surplus has been trying to find places to go for years, from bureaucracy to other stable state jobs, and maybe eventually they'll eat bitter like Xi wants and start filling well paying blue collar jobs. Society is eventually going to accept/reckon with with talent over production. IMO Saturating society with more talent than needed (or more infra than needed) is better problem than shortage.
PRC kneecapping softtech so hard tech like semi get first dibs on talent, hence hard tech jobs and wages up. They figured it's probably bad use of resources to waste talent refining DiDi delivery by +5 seconds or pervasive Edtech making child rearing onerous. Plenty of movement in LLM AI space, people are conflating unfinished regulations with broad AI kneecapping which isn't actually happening. FDI is basically drop in the bucket to domestic investment and has been for a while. Investment as % of GDP in PRC is ~40% vs EU/US/OECD 20-30%. It's stupid high. West overinflate importance of their low single digit percentage / non substantive investment in PRC.
On semi, you're comparing building things that US should already be able to build, advanced fabs that they have entire tech supply access to VS PRC trying to replicate / close gap to tech they don't have, i.e. it's an innovation not construction problem. Where it's a construction issue, i.e. large nodes, PRC is building like crazy and mostly on schedule. Significant delays are in 28nm and smaller fabs due to escalating export controls by US who has to literally roadblock PRC from being on schedule. US systematically self-sabatoges so she has to also sabatoge PRC to ensure gap doesn't close.
On PRC shifting from big fund, that's due to US sanctions/export controls forcing PRC semi to actually focus on indigenous tech. Big fund was wasteful carrot trying to get PRC semi to indigenize, but no one wanted to when access to mature western tech was available. Now it's not, so incentive structure different, as stated in article itself. See major companies in PRC semi have explosive growth in last couple years... without big fund tier subsidy because sanctions have made them viable. US sticks works better than PRC carrots. No one's fucking around trying buying US/western equipment anymore and doubling down on actually developing and integrating indigenous semi supply chain since unlike bigfund era when situation wasn't existential and bigfund basically opportunity to graft.
PRC is behind only in the sense that US has to actively keep PRC down (which is US right), US CHIPS has no reason to be behind other than lack of human capita and inability to build. BTW there's a reason TSMC/Samsung expanded to PRC before US, and US had to sanction/export control their way to prevent PRC from leading gaining advanced nodes, not just indigenous efforts like Fujian Jinhua, but other established semi players as well. The Taiwanese and Koreans know PRC (just like TW/SKR) has no issue building or staffing and economically operating advanced fabs, meanwhile they were reluctant to expand to US even with CHIPS subsidy.
>After scrutinizing Roosevelt’s record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.
Biden clearly understands the real economic value of keeping an economy functional.