The conventional wisdom,which this article expresses,regards China as some sort of miracle of exponential and unstoppable growth.

There are more than a few China watchers who are not so sure.I am inclined to liken Chinese growth to a malignant tumour which will eventually bring down an intrinsically frail organism.

Therefore, Australia putting so much value on building trade and other relationships with China is a dangerous and probably futile exercise.

As Niels Bohr put it:

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

However my feeling is that China has at least another decade of rapid growth ahead of it. After that, who knows. An export oriented economy cannot keep growing faster than its customers indefinitely. The Chinese population is aging and will probably start contracting after about 2025.

There is growing labour unrest. At some point the Chinese Communist Party is going to face a tough choice:

Democratise or derail the economy.

South Korea and Taiwan democratised. What will China do?

Thanks Kate

Good article. We may have several things in common...

I was particularly impressed by your snippet:

"(After the 2006 unrest in Dili, China deployed commercial Chinese airliners to extract Chinese citizens from what it perceived was a burgeoning civil war. Some of those relocated included Timorese-Chinese who did not speak Chinese, nor had previously identified themselves as culturally Chinese, but who had some form of Chinese ancestry. The end result was several families - particularly those with profitable business interests - were given Chinese citizenship, and relocated lock, stock and barrel to Portuguese speaking Macao.)"

I'm wondering if China has a long term settlement/colinisation plan for East Timor? If so this would help service the Chinese naval base (Dili) and air base (probably at Baucau - Dili airport is too small) that I predict China will build in the long term.

Regards

Peter Coates
petemate@fastmail.fm