China: The One-Child Policy Dilemma
July 12, 2007
This week in a special Outside the Box my good friends at Stratfor addresses the current Chinese dilemma created by their One Child Policy, namely how to continue economic growth with a rapidly aging population coupled with a deteriorating labor force, mind you striving to attend to these issues simultaneously without creating significant rural unrest.
Stratfor predicts a less than somber outcome, anticipating Beijing' inability to address these dire concerns simultaneously, with the result being bureaucratic malaise and rural unrest.
Stratfor, run by geo-political maven George Friedman, provides some insightful and comprehensive research on geopolitical events and global affairs, and is my favorite source for keeping up with what is happening in the world, and what the events actually mean. He continues to be generous by offering my readers a discount to his normal subscription rates which can be obtained by clicking here.
John Mauldin, Editor
Outside the Box
subscribers@mauldineconomics.com
China: The One-Child Policy Dilemma
Summary
China's one-child policy has reached a crossroads after two decades of stricter implementation in urban areas. As a result of these different levels of enforcement, urban governments now face a starker demographic reality than their less prosperous rural counterparts, while the one-child policy has become a key catalyst of rural unrest as a symbol of rural-urban inequity. Beijing probably will loosen the policy for urban…