Robotization is unstoppable in China due to the decline in the workforce
Before the end of the century China’s workforce will shrink to300 million workers; and this makes the widespread robotization of its workers inevitable to cover the gap left by the absence of600 million. . .
Before the end of the century China’s workforce will shrink to300 million workers; and this makes the widespread robotization of its workers inevitable to cover the gap left by the absence of600 million workers. This situation is essentially demographic: the working population between 15 and 64 years of age reached 1 billion last decade, and would collapse to 300 million in 2100 according to the United Nations. Faced with this situation, China has installed2 million units of robotsin the last 3 years, the highest number in the world according to the International Federation of Robotics; and this means that now57% of all Chinese factories are robotizedor are preparing to do so in the next 2/3 years. Chinese culture, essentially strategic, always tends to transform necessity into virtue; and this is what is happening today with the overwhelming force of robotization. Some particularities of the Chinese situation should be highlighted: there is a high level of unemployment (21%in 2025) among highly qualified 18- to 25-year-olds; and this is due to thedeflationary depressionof the domestic economy, which is the direct consequence of its gigantic primordial imbalance, which is the trade surplus of US$ 1. 6 trillion, created and expanded by a phenomenal export manufacturing machine, which receives between 4 and 6 points of the product every year as direct investment for its expansion. China is capable of creating more than 2 million robots per year, more than the entire rest of the world combined, but still the workforcedecreases with much higher power. This affects thesocial cohesionof the People’s Republic, which is its most appreciated value, together with the incessant technological change, which together constitute the basis of itspolitical legitimacy. The deflationary domestic depression that China is experiencing today, as a consequence of its fundamental imbalance originating from its mega trade surplus,threatens to break this basic rule of social cohesionthis is about the governance of the “Middle Empire” of the 21st century. Not only new university graduates have difficulties obtaining jobs commensurate with their high educational level. Also the296 million internal migrantswho work exclusively in the domestic economy, earn less and less in real terms, mainly because their level of productivityis null or negative. Old Houseswarned during the “Cultural Revolution” that not only the young readers of his Red Book were destroying the country, but they were also filling the prisons and inflicting countless humiliations on the founding figures of the Party, such asDeng Xiaopingand his ownZhou Enlai. For this reason, in a 180-degree strategic turn, he identified the Soviet Union as the main enemy of the People’s Republic, which deployed 40 divisions on the border of the Ussuri River; and opted for the alliance with the United States, chaired at that time by Richard Nixon, the fervent follower of Senator Joseph McCarthy; and he did it without hesitation, guided by theneed,who is the teacher of authentic political leaders. Today the need has the name of robotization; and the urgency in its imposition comes from the systematic decline of the workforce. But none of these initiatives implies an effective response in the short term, but rather within the framework, and as part, of the resolution of the primordial imbalance arising from the lethal combination between the deflationary depression of the domestic economy and a hyper-trade surplus that in 15 years will exceed US$ 2 trillion, and which is absolutely unsustainable. Hence the alliance – and the need – for the association with the US and Donald Trumpwhich is what is happening. Right now, 2/3 of the Chinese population is urban; and 20% of that percentage is made up of migrant workers, while 25% of the total still works in agriculture. This is the basic structure of the social cohesion of the People’s Republic; and in it the central data is that rural sectors receive between 5 and 7 times less income than urban sectors. On this basis, unavoidable robotization must operate. At the same time, the domestic economy, deeply depressed and deflationary, creates fewer jobs and lower productivity. It must be added that in historical-structural terms this means that the accumulation process of Chinese capitalism ttends to increasingly favor capital over laborwhich affects and cracks the social cohesion of the system. All this in the midst of a technological revolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which tends to accelerate itself more and more at a dizzying pace that brings it closer to its basic category of instantaneity, which aggravates the pro-capitalist bias of the accumulation process. But the new has only just begun in the 5,000 years of Chinese history; and capitalism has always proven to be a constant creator of novelties; Therefore, in this squaring of the circle that is the reality of the People’s Republic today, one must be able to wait and see, what in Mexico they call “being able tolisten to how the grass grows. ”