China labor

It was recently reported that China overstated its population by 150 million people but this did not come as a surprise to many China watchers. Because the government controls all the data without any free press to check, it does the obvious and cooks the books. The reported GDP is also questionable as 25% of this is investments in real estate. The Chinese people are heavily into China's real estate boom. In order to keep people employed China built entire cities that sit mostly empty. This meant a large amount of money into something that offers no return. While many people are concerned about the US debt which stands at 130% of GDP, China's debt to GDP ration is 270%. China is facing a demographic disaster because of an aging work force. This is the result of many millions moving from the farms to the city as country people have large families and city families are much smaller. Adding to the problem was China's one child policy which started in 1980 and just ended in 2015. Because people preferred a son statistics show about 40 million missing girls and of course population depends on women. China's exports have been declining since 2008 as more countries look for different suppliers. China scared the world in 2010 when it abruptly cut rare earth exports to Japan because Japan detained a Chinese fishing boat. Since then many US companies have been moving their supply chains out of China and this is expected to continue at an accelerated rate.