China

The world is watching as China comes apart at the seams. The same draw of low wages that brought in many businesses is now feeling the sting of low wages from other countries in Southeast Asia. Countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia now have lower wages than China and companies are exiting China. Adding to the problem is the fact that Western countries led by the US are reshoring. Thirty trillion dollars in infrastructure financed mostly by Western countries is being abandoned as globalization comes to an end. China must import most of its food and energy and is hurt more than any country by de globalization. Adding to their woes is a shortage of working age people. This is the group that not only does the work but are the consumers. China does not have a consumer based economy like the US but they have an investment based economy. Over the past 20 years they have build many government financed projects just to be building. Many of these are wasteful. A prime example is housing where they have 75 million empty homes and apartments. The have built entire cities that stand empty and these are major cities not towns. This is all further exasperated by the loss in population that happened over the past 60 years as people moved from the country into the cities. When you do that you have fewer children and add to that the one child policy instigated in 1980 and you have a demographic catastrophe. The world is witnessing the beginning of the end as young people are taking to the streets to protest. Will there be another Tiananmen Square as happened in 1989.