China's Real Population Numbers are Shocking (Demographic Collapse is More Advanced than we Thought)

In today's episode, we delve into recent revelations about China's drastically inflated population numbers, which have significant implications for global demographics and economic stability. Our discussion covers the impact of China's misrepresented fertility rates on stock markets and global population estimates, drawing comparisons with similar issues in Nigeria. We explore independent research on China's population, including discrepancies in birth statistics, Lunar New Year travel patterns, and salt consumption analysis. Additionally, we theorize potential dystopian solutions for China's demographic challenges and discuss parallels with historical and current geopolitical situations. Join us as we unpack these complex issues and their broader global significance.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone! I am excited to be talking to you today. Today we are going to be talking about China and recent information that has come out through multiple angles.

that leads people to believe that China's total population, a lot of people know that, their fertility rate was lower than the official figure said it was, so they did all of this. Oh, we got it wrong. We're readjusting our population numbers. We're readjusting our fertility rate numbers. Turns out that their total population is still being represented as dramatically higher than it really is.

And this has major implications because it means that one, their entire stock market might be vastly overvalued right now, even given how fragile it is. And two for people who are thinking about global population numbers right now, they might be way lower than we think they are. And this isn't just a China problem.

I'm also mentioned a lot recently. It's a [00:01:00] Nigeria problem, which is another very populated country. A lot of people don't know, but Nigeria. Gives out oil money dollars to different provinces based on their reported Population

and

There's nobody overseeing the populations that the individual provinces are reporting So there is always a huge incentive to lie in the extreme and I mean it's africa, right?

How corrupt are these numbers going to be? So

Simone Collins: this is very similar to the blue zone scandal which came out whereby they found that All these supposedly very old people that lived in countries were not actually alive. It was their family members collecting their pensions and lying about them being alive.

And here's just another issue of incentives being misaligned. People are lying about their populations because they get more money when they say that these people are there, aren't there. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that globally speaking, we may have to do a re ledgering. That's going to have people realize that the total global population is dramatically lower than anyone thinks it is.

Especially if you're looking at UN numbers, there was a case recently where somebody sent an email to the UN saying Brazil's own [00:02:00] tabulation of their population shows it's 10 million less than yours. And the UN in response, they go, why don't you update it? And they go we don't want to alarm anyone.

I'm like, and that's over a double digit off from where their fertility population actually is. Percentage, double digit percentage off. So the UN is just lying through their teeth at this point to try to hide this.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: So it turns out after recording this, this situation was astronomically worse than anyone anticipated. And this first series of graphs I'm showing you. The red line is the actual fertility rate of these countries. The blue lines is UN repeated projections of the fertility rate of these countries was interesting year.

As you can see with some like Columbia, it never even was really attached to the real fertility rate with others like Korea every year. They just expect it to stop going down anymore. Which is just well negligence. They're lying to people. If we go to this next set here, you can see what's happening throughout Latin America. The red [00:03:00] line is the real fertility rate.

And all of the other lines are UN every year saying, stop worrying about this.

This is why the world's not panicking. If the world saw these red lines projected forwards by any reasonable equation. They would be shitting themselves right now. Look at this, even in Africa.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: And the middle east

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: So here you have Tunisia and Turkey. The same thing is happening and it's not just the UN you also have

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: and I H M E every major organization is attempting to Gaslight people about the severity of this. We're going to have a different episode where we go over this, but wow. I am shocked to see this coming out in a mainstream newspaper.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: No, here. Like you to take a moment to think, okay. If the UN is lying about all these other countries, fertility rates. And these countries own governments are like, Hey, actually, you are hugely overrepresented. Our fertility rates. , imagine what's going on with China right now. When their government doesn't want [00:04:00] people to know how bad things are. And has been famously able to push around the UN.

Malcolm Collins: All so specifically China doesn't have a 1. 4 billion person population. Their population is probably below 1 billion people and fell below 1 billion people a while ago.

Speaker: See, out of all the places, this is the place that I'm worried about the most. Why? Just, the way they live, they're different. What, Chinese people? They just wreck everything, they make everything weird. That's what I'm worried about. To you? To you? Everything. Chicken. Why is it orange in Chinatown?. The way they write, the letters are weird. Their alphabet's not like ours.

Theirs is like, like someone testing out a biro. Everything's There's no logic to anything that they do. There is! Of course there's a logic to it! The way they read a book, it's all the other way round. From back to front, instead of from front to back, and up and down, and Everything that we've done, they've gone, Right, we're gonna do it weirder.

Malcolm Collins: But let's talk about this. A [00:05:00] lot of this episode, and I always want to give credit when a lot of it comes from somebody else's research, came from a show called Lei's Real Talk. Or Lee's Real Talk. Anyway, pretty decent China watcher show. It's certainly not as good for me as like China's Fat Chasers.

 But she does real solid work and she sometimes breaks stories and it's definitely a source that I think people should have in their back pocket if they are doing China stuff.

But everything that she's talking about here is data that can be independently checked. So first there's an argument that China's birth statistics are inflated as evidence by the discrepancy between reported births and the number of deaths. Of bcg vaccinations administered logic in china. The bcg vaccine is mandatory and given to newborns within 24 hours of birth Therefore the number of bcg vaccines should closely match the number of births A chinese researcher conducted a study comparing the official birth data to BCG Vaccine Administration records from 2008 to 2021.

The [00:06:00] study found each bottle of BCG Vaccine can vaccinate between 1 to 5 babies with an average of 1. 35 babies per bottle. Using this average, the calculated number of births based on BCG Vaccine usage was consistently lower than official birth statistics. Over the 14 year period from 2008 to 2021, the discrepancy totaled 58 million births.

Extrapolating this trend back to the 1980s when China's economic reforms began, the total overestimate could be as high as 178 million people. This research argues that this discrepancy suggests systematic over reporting. And I will have a link to this study in the description. It's in Mandarin.

So be aware of that. Wow. Then there's data from the Lunar New Year travel study. A significant decrease in Lunar New Year travel between 2019 and 2023 suggests a potential population decline, particularly among lower income groups. Logic. Lunar New Year is [00:07:00] the peak travel period in China with almost everyone traveling to visit family.

A large decrease in travel numbers, especially among lower income groups, could indicate population decline. Data and source official data from Zeonoon News Agency shows in 2019 2. 984 billion person trips during the 40 Day Lunar New Year period in 2023 1. 556 billion. Trips during the same period, which represents a 47 percent decrease overall.

So these might be representing very large population drafts breaking down. The data air and rail travel is typically used by more affluent travelers decreased by only 15 percent bus and road travel. Typically used by lower income groups. So the largest decrease calculation, assuming 422 million people, 30 percent of the official 1.

4 billion population didn't travel due to poverty or old age In 2019, 986 million people made 2.984 billion trips an average of three trips per [00:08:00] person in 2023, assuming 2.5 trips per person due to economic factors. This suggests a potential population decrease of 556 million people who didn't travel in 2023.

Now this something ain't right. Yeah, I'll explain what would cause this. And she's actually done a different piece where she goes into this in a lot more detail, but she argues that this unexplained decrease is due to unreported population decline. due to COVID 19 fatalities. So not only is the overall population less than they're reporting, but they're hiding a huge chunk of the population that died during COVID 19.

She has a different episode where she goes into kindergarten closures because there was a sudden increase in kindergarten closures were 20 percent closed year over year this last year. And she says, this indicates. that a lot of people were either died during COVID or something like that or etc. And they decrease in specific regions at really high levels, specifically smaller towns.

And we don't have the rural data. But she argues that the country could have lost more than 20 percent of its [00:09:00] population in COVID. And from someone simply from death. deaths from death. And some of the CCP's behavior indicates that this is the case. By that, what I mean is right now they've had a mandate to destroy records of deaths during the COVID period.

In a lot of hospitals and we'll go into more data that the COVID deaths may have been dramatically higher than they're reporting. But so not only is their overall population lower because they were lying about some stuff, but their overall population is higher. lower because of people dying and keep in mind for the flight thing.

It was the low in middle class numbers that dropped this huge amount, not the upper class numbers that didn't drop that much at all. And people

Simone Collins: who. We're uniquely hurt in a disease outbreak would be those who can't go to a private hospital, for example and get better treatment. So that could be the play.

I see.

Malcolm Collins: Or we're more likely just to be shipped to 1 of the I forgot what they call them. Not

Simone Collins: really. Yeah. Scary isolation [00:10:00] zones where you just went to a cell.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Really bad situation there. And the next is the salt consumption analysis. This was an analysis of regional salt consumption data, which suggests China's population is significantly lower than official figures.

Salt consumption per capita is relatively stable by analyzing regional salt sales data and known per capita levels. consumption rates, one can estimate the population. A Chinese researcher conducted a comprehensive study of salt consumption data from 2000 to 2022. The methodology involved collecting regional salt consumption data from various news reports over 20 years using known daily salt intake figures for different regions ranging from 8.

5 grams to 11. 5 grams per person per day. They calculated the estimated population based on salt consumption data and compared it to official census data. Findings from 2000 to 2014, calculated population was 19.29% lower than the official data in 2015 to 2022, calculated population was approximately [00:11:00] 31% lower than official data.

So again, the huge chunk disappeared there so that they've been over reporting for a while, but now they're not even reporting what happened with Covid. Applying the 31 percent discrepancy to the official 2022 population figure of 1. 4 billion yields an estimated population of 986 million. The full study will be linked to in the description.

 Was interesting here is the arguments are supporting from multiple directions. So it's not just one study. They're all showing this huge like 31 percent lower number. And then she ran a different set of math just for another set of math. You can run here where she looked at the reported fertility rate of China versus India and starting populations of the two countries.

And then showed that China showed a much higher growth than it should have an overall population when contrasting with India. And then people can be like that might be because they have better medical care. And so then what she did is she looked at, okay, what was the lifespan [00:12:00] increase between China and India during those periods?

And India had a larger lifespan increase over that period than China had. Which implied that the numbers should have favored India further, which implied we are seeing systematically wrong numbers here. Wow.

Simone Collins: What good sleuthing on her part. This just sounds, these are such amazing questions. I'd be so proud of one of our kids.

If they looked at a problem from this many different angles, I really respect her.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I really respect her as well.

Yeah. There was also a Russian and a Japanese study that put their population at around 800 million.

This specifically the Russian experts name. Was Victor McCove, and he concluded China's population is not the official, the number that's nearing 1. 5 billion.

Simone Collins: This seems like a classic China problem in terms of the way that rewards or funding is dealt out to different regions, causing.

Major problems. I recall this being [00:13:00] an issue in like the height of early communist China

Malcolm Collins: with this is really interesting. So Russians gathered Chinese urban populations, added them up, and then arrived at a total urban population at 280 million

and

assuming the rural urban populations have a one to one ratio, then China's actual population should be around 500 million.

Simone Collins: Why should they be run to one? That doesn't make sense to me.

Malcolm Collins: But if total rural. population carries a higher weight. It may not be one to one. But they said that China's total population should not exceed 800 million, but I'd expect their urban population to be higher than their rural population, China's recent push on this.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: that is fascinating. So we've got more stuff here. Here's an article. And so just, in terms of like China having a lower population than it otherwise might have had. 1 here for people are wondering how big this difference is. It could be. So they did 2 different [00:14:00] calculations here.

So what you might have is a real population. Population of, oh yeah, so this was just a 944 million and priority set. Okay. Now in terms of who is saying that more people died during covid than official numbers This is not an urban monoculture cover up. There was an article by the cdc on this topic And there was an article in nature on this topic and the Atlantic did a piece called, can a million Chinese people die?

And nobody know official statistics on COVID can't be trusted because they share Beijing's political interests. Making the dead disappear is only part of it. And then evidence of underreporting satellite imagery revealed heightened activity at crematorium centers during the outbreak , domestic footage of overwhelmed hospital wards circulated on Chinese social media before being censored.

A morning and funeral index based on online search volume for related terms indicated 712,000 excess mortalities, so nearly a million excess mortalities from December, 2022 to [00:15:00] February, 2023.

Simone Collins: Oh that's recent. That's after after the pandemic. 2022 to 2023 is. When the pandemic is very quote unquote old over.

That's

Malcolm Collins: whatever the case may be over a million more people died So basically they're just hiding their deaths. They're Fudging their births the whole chinese situation is not only a paper tiger It's a Potomkin village. It's fake. It isn't an actual economic superpower in the way that we believe that it is.

And I think that right now, another thing that she's been arguing in her recent videos, and I actually think she's right about this is when we ask, why is Xi Jinping not doing logical things to protect his economy or his people right now, given how bad things are. The answer could be that he's trying to transition into a wartime economy, and a wartime economy is not going to be driven by consumer demand.

It's going to be driven by [00:16:00] centralized production queues.

Simone Collins: Do you, are there signs that they are centralizing their production?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Keep in mind, all the billionaires have been like disappearing. They've been centralizing all their major industries. Remember when what's his face?

Alibaba guy disappeared, right? Yeah, that's very much a move to a, how

Simone Collins: does that have to do with what does that have to do with centralizing production?

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Remember how we have defined in other videos the difference between a socialist state and a fascist state? Yes Whereas a socialist state puts the state industry like the economic means of production Under the state for the purposes of distributing wealth as equally as possible Whereas a fascist state Puts the means of production under a state for the purpose of spreading a particular ideology or worldview in keeping existing oligarchs in power, i.

e. what the Democrats are doing. That's why the Democrats are fundamentally a fascist party. A lot of people don't understand this. They think I'm like exaggerating when I say that. Anyway that's what China is doing right now. It's they're transitioning. [00:17:00] To a fascist economic system where they are putting the means of production under the authority of the existing power structure to heighten the power of the existing oligarchical structure because I think that they know that an economic collapse is impossible.

Basically, the entire economy there has been. More of a Ponzi scheme than the rest of the world's economy for a while. It's like foreign investors come in, foreign investors come in, your money will always grow, look at how many people we have imagined how big this could be. And I think that, very similar to what happened in Japan in the eighties but about a thousand times worse.

Simone Collins: What are the implications of this?

If they're

transitioning to a wartime economy, do we have good reason to believe therefore that they are going to come for Taiwan faster?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I think they meant to go for Taiwan by now, but Russia's F up in Ukraine has significantly lowered their desire for [00:18:00] that particular conflict.

That's my read of it. Like all of this, I think started Before they saw what happened in Ukraine and right now there's like an ongoing conversation. Do we do it? Do we not?

Simone Collins: So I thought it's more of just a siege scenario and taiwan from an energy independent standpoint Is so screwed that all you have to do is just besiege them

Malcolm Collins: Do you know how much our gpus that we've been buying up?

Simone and I have been buying up gpus are going to be worth if taiwan gets sieged

Simone Collins: How you will look pretty good to get

Malcolm Collins: a very good resale value on those. By the way one of the things we're looking for right now is a CTO for the companies, if anyone's like a GP, GPU specialist, or a, running data center specialists, let us know we'd really be interested in, in, in working with you or has a good technical resume otherwise For a position at a startup, but yeah, so the implication could be that they're going for taiwan I don't know.

It's just such a dumb decision if they do but it could be with the goal of securing the existing administration Knowing that [00:19:00] an economic collapse of the region is not going to happen but already underway

Simone Collins: Golly. Okay. Yeah. I was reading in totally outside of, let's say someone wants to write all this off as conspiracy theorizing and they choose to not believe any of the stats presented.

I was just reading that China's getting to the point that for every child born, six people are dying. It's that bad. Wait, is that

Malcolm Collins: bad now? That's horrifying.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it, let me make sure I have that right. Okay, here we go.

Demographer warns that if China's fertility rate remains on its downward trajectory, eventually six people will die for every newborn. This was from an article called China's pro birth policy is not yet enough to counter demographic crisis. Expert warns published in the South China Morning Post. So that's mainstream.

Not question people talking about, just how bad things are, how their fertility rate dropped to 1. [00:20:00] 09 in 2022. But that's likely highly overstated. We don't have numbers for 2023 officially. And to your point about this, anything they do send to us may be very highly overstated. Even in China's, Best possible, most enthusiastic and optimistic number presentation, we're still looking at an extremely dire scenario if things are even worse and as bad as you describe and as bad as people are seeing through things like baby vaccinations and salt intake and vacation travel and morning, it's bad.

It's also very concerning that apparently excess deaths are so much higher, even between 2022 and 2023. It implies.

Malcolm Collins: Gets me on this. And I think that a lot of people, what were you going to say? It implies.

Simone Collins: It implies that it's not just a COVID thing and it's not just people being hopeless and not having kids anymore thing that [00:21:00] people that the country may also be deeply unwell in other ways that we aren't fully aware of when they're, I

Malcolm Collins: guess my takeaway from a lot of this is one.

India is likely a bigger player in the global future than we think. China has long Basically what this means is India's population is higher than China's population, and going forward for the rest of human history we can project right now will continue to be higher. But in addition to that, it just means that China is when people are predicting future events, do not over-index China's role in those events?

I guess I would say when I talk to a lot of people, I would say this is one of the, in terms of smart people who I talk to, like really smart people, consistent mistakes that they make in the single most consistent mistake I see they make. Is believing too much that China has a future seeing them trying to play out the roles and the moves that they make, 50 years from now, 100 [00:22:00] years from now, thinking that they are going to find a way to fix this quickly when.

They should have already done that. Like it's basically too late for them at this point, even if they start going on a forced birth campaign or something like that, I just wouldn't expect that much benefit from it, given that it would need to admit things that mainstream training officials just aren't admitting right now.

Keep in mind, they were one of the first countries to. Jail someone who is doing gene editing in humans. Very publicly, right? Like they made it clear. We don't do genetics here We don't believe in genetics here all humans exactly the same and that's going to make any sort of a campaign they do to try to increase fertility rate Likely create an adverse outcome.

So I just don't I do. And it also means that their existing power on the world stage might be being overstated. And a lot of China's existing power, people misunderstand that like their existing power is due to what they produce. And I'm like, [00:23:00] that is not true. Their existing power is due to the amount of money American and European investors have poured into China.

That is where their valuation comes from. Obviously, China.

Simone Collins: So you mean people buying.

Malcolm Collins: Companies putting companies in buying stock, investing in, et cetera, investing in China is why China has a high valuation. Like, when you're looking at like Chinese GDP or like the share of the global market and blah, blah, blah, a lot of this is like basically fudged numbers due to the people who have put money into that.

And that's also why. You don't get this counter narrative of actually China is not that relevant, politically speaking, because nobody benefits from this. The wealthy oligarchs who run our society, they have tons of money invested in this that they can't quickly get out. And so they're not gonna want it widely disseminated that actually China is already over.

So they don't publish it in their newspapers. [00:24:00] They don't talk about it. They don't promote people who are talking about it. It's the same with the political apparatuses in neither serves the conservatives, nor the Democrats well to say China is not particularly relevant as a power player.

Because, people want to focus on what do we do if Taiwan gets attacked?

And as I've always said, what we do if Taiwan gets attacked is nothing. Because Taiwan won't exist in 100 years at their current fertility rate. We are not saving a thing of persistent value by saving Taiwan at this point. If Taiwan can get their fertility rate up, I would commit American force to help them.

But at their current fertility rate, you are just delaying their death by a century. There is no point. This very seriously. A country with a fertility rate that's hovering around 1, halving their population every generation, why would I have our either capital or actual human beings dying to defend that?

That's insane.

Simone Collins: [00:25:00] Yeah but by that logic, are you trying to argue that we should only fight for countries with high birth rates? So if someone invades a high birth rate African country ah, defend them.

Malcolm Collins: No, it's not just based on the birth rate. It's based on their relevance in a future Earth scenario.

That's

Simone Collins: Africa. They're the ones who are going to decline last.

Malcolm Collins: I don't think that you are actually really helping that much in terms of the future trajectory of Earth by committing tons of resources to preventing random groups in Africa from attacking each other whether or not, it just all comes out in the wash there because the infrastructure and the economic infrastructure in that region is so poorly developed that you're just really not getting much of a, an outcome from that.

But if somebody was to say. Okay. Oh, would you care? Like where would you care about defending if they were attacked? What's a country where you're like, this country is going to have an outsized, a level of impact in the future. When I look at current India, no Israel.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: Israel's the big example here.

[00:26:00] Technologically, they're going to matter in 50 to a hundred years fertility white wise. They're going to matter in a 50 or a hundred years. In terms of Who is it worth investing to protect? Israel is who it's worth investing to protect. Taiwan is not particularly worth investing to protect. In terms of the Ukraine, I thought that it was worth it to just show that Russia couldn't push people around in the beginning.

I no longer think it's worth it. Now they're just fighting over land, and neither country's gonna matter much in the future either, and Russia has already expended all of their military power.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I guess if this were like an elimination based reality TV show and you're trying to decide to who to ally yourself with if there's someone who's just clearly tanking they lack the charisma or physical prowess or whatever the show's based on, cooking ability.

To hang in there. Yes. You really need to look at someone's ability to be there in the future. And it's not just whether you like them or whether

Malcolm Collins: I like Taiwan a lot.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I they're a

Simone Collins: [00:27:00] contender. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: they're just not a contender. It's the same with China. So keep in mind, like China and Taiwan are enemies.

I am very pro Taiwan. I am very anti CCP, but I admit that they both are dealing with this population problem and there really isn't an out for them at this point that I can see. And so when people are like, Oh, what do you think the, China's going to be doing in X many, I'm like, they're not going to be doing anything that matters.

Now this does have impacts on like semiconductor production and everything like that, but I think we'll be able to offshore Taiwan's semiconductor production at least the relevant parts before things go tits up. Keep in mind that because we've hit a Moore's law sort of ceiling now we are Entering optimal semiconductor world at this point.

Do you understand what I mean by that Simone? So historically if one company was like really ahead of other companies in semiconductor production it didn't really make sense to try to compete with them because it's you've got You, you want to try [00:28:00] to catch up with this company, but every year they're improving so much.

They're like 30 percent better every year. So even if I figure out how they're making the semiconductors they're making this year, I'm not going to be able to compete with them economically by the time I get that up because by the time I get that Fab up by the time I get all that up, it's going to be 5, 10 years from now.

And they're going to be like a generation, not one generation, like 10 generations ahead of me, right? Like I will be able to make very simple semiconductors, but nothing particularly impressive. But now the advancement in semiconductor production has lowered dramatically. You are getting very small increment because we reached the edges of what physics can do.

And so this gives other companies and countries a long time to catch up with this. And I think the next major advancement in semiconductors that we should focus on from a human civilizational perspective is how can we, one, Lateralize semiconductor production. Right now, it takes 40 different [00:29:00] countries all developing.

The lasers are developed in Norway and the plans are developed in California and the end products developed in Taiwan. How can we lateralize this process? And how can we microtize this process, i. e. I think we're going to need to focus on more modular and smaller semiconductors as global supply chains begin to break down even if they are slightly slower it's going to be equally useful given the way that cloud networks work in the way that you can just chain like GPUs together.

Simone Collins: If you were living in China right now let's say in a place like Shanghai where the birth rate is so low. Where would you move? If Shanghai's fertility, by the way, is 0. 6 as of 2023. So not even this year. Lower than I get out. I

Malcolm Collins: don't think that there is a way to to, [00:30:00] I think that China is internally burning itself.

I think that the situation in China is going to get astronomically worse than it is today. You

Simone Collins: think they're going to start blocking emigration though? I feel like they already.

Malcolm Collins: Stopped they stopped it like five years ago. They put major bans and restrictions on people out migrating. Yeah,

Simone Collins: so then that's not a realistic you're just saying figure out how to figure

Malcolm Collins: out figure out like you're running from a holocaust that's about to happen like Figure out like you don't get how bad things are going to get.

That's my read of China right now. You do not know, you cannot comprehend you. If you want to know how bad things are going to get in China in the future, ask your grandparents about the great famine. Okay. That's the scale things are going to in China right now.

Simone Collins: Yeah. What does worry me is.

Again, those excess deaths between 2022 and 2023, like we're not in the middle of the pandemic anymore. And to my knowledge, there have been no [00:31:00] immense natural disasters in China, though, okay, I'm not following the news that closely. I do wonder, especially after all these stories of people being like buildings collapses or infrastructure, not really working well.

And I guess it's just so hard to trust what you're hearing, because then when you hear from anyone who is in any way proud of China, and I think there's a lot to be proud of in China, I think the Chinese people are awesome. And I've traveled through China in a decent amount, not an amazing amount, but I've been to like Zhangjiajie and Changsha and not like your typical just Beijing and Hong Kong and Shanghai, though I've done those too.

It's an amazing place. But when you talk with anyone who has pride in China, then it's just propaganda talking points. So I don't know who to consult, right?

Malcolm Collins: This is the thing also about out migrating from China, historic. And real Chinese [00:32:00] culture is better preserved in the immigrant communities than it is preserved within CCP China.

If you like, if you're like, I want to get in touch with my Chinese traditional roots, you are better off living in one of the American Chinese immigrant communities than you are under CCP China because they often were founded by individuals from before the Cultural Revolution, and they maintain more true uninterrupted through lines.

To traditional Chinese culture.

Simone Collins: I do think that's really interesting that when in some countries you get these selective pressures where people with a certain fidelity to a certain culture, just leave on mass and then anyone who stays basically gets completely changed through those same selective pressures.

And then the original country. Is somewhere else now. And you can even see this and not necessarily in holistic cultural sets or cultural mimetic religious, whatever [00:33:00] sets, but even just an accents like I've ever argued that the true British accent of will say before the American Revolution may be more alive in some versions of American speech in like the 1900s than even the modern British accent.

Which is an interesting, yeah. Because like certain groups migrate and like things evolve, it's not like after a point of great migration, do things stay the same in the original home country? No things change. In fact, often when there is a great migration, it's because there's significant change in the home country.

So I'd like that point about cultural fidelity, maybe not even being in China. And if you really love China and if you believe in China, you maybe need to rebuild that somewhere else.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I like that way of looking at it. It can be rebuilt, but I don't think it can be rebuilt in China. Not so long as Xi Jinping is in charge.

Now, he have, and this is one area where I realize I have a [00:34:00] big difference between my friends who believe that China has a future in me, is they're like Xi Jinping, he won't be in charge for long. He's got replacements in the wing. As soon as he Fs up enough, they're gonna replace him. And my belief is, The opposite of that.

I don't think they have real replacements lined up for him. I have looked into these people's, they've said, oh, this guy is competent. I'm, I don't see it. I don't see it. I don't think that they have a good replacement for him. And if I were

Simone Collins: him, I would not want to take, or if I were anyone else, I would not want to take his place.

I would be terrified to take his place.

Malcolm Collins: I don't think that they I think that he's for a long time purged everyone competent who might take his position. I don't think that there is somebody who can competently take his position. I think when Xi Jinping falls, a lot of people think, oh, this is when things begin to fix themselves.

No, I think that's when warlords begin to take over. I think that's when things begin to fracture or they go incredibly stupid, a la Venezuela, like a bus driver taking over. I [00:35:00] think that as much as Xi Jinping is a problem, he's also the bulwark against complete idiocy. And I have intense fear around what happens when he does fall because I think people think some competent bureaucrat is going to take over and that's not the tea leaves I'm reading.

The tea leaves I'm reading is. Some idiots going to take over who, we would never have assigned power was intention. And if I'm wrong about this if the system is still working, if they still can get a competent person in there and they can get rid of Xi Jinping, China has a chance, but it's got no chance under Xi Jinping.

Or the Dowager Empress, as I call him.

Simone Collins: The Dowager Empress.

Malcolm Collins: He reminds me of the Dowager Empress in the last fall of China.

Simone Collins: The scary dragon lady. I guess everyone calls Dowager Empresses or any mean woman dragon lady. But yeah, the one with the really young son who just killed a bunch of people, that one.

Malcolm Collins: In fact, if I [00:36:00] was in office I would always call him the Dowager Empress. Because I think people need to draw this connection more to one, understand just how much he's hurting the country into two through a historic parallel into to understand just how long within the Chinese bureaucracy, somebody who is that toxic to the country's long term best interest can stay in power.

If people don't take care of them.

Simone Collins: If you were, let's say someone incredibly competent, the right person for China were suddenly installed and given autocratic power. What would you have them do? What would you encourage them to do? If they came to you and ask you

Malcolm Collins: for something you need to do is become completely transparent about all of their records their economy, their population, their part of me

Simone Collins: wonder.

So what if Xi Jinping doesn't even know the gravity of this and can't because There are so many adverse incentives at play where a province is not going to tell you because then they won't get their tax [00:37:00] revenue. I feel like there's a crisis of reality

Malcolm Collins: in place, independent departments, independent branches of government using things like AI and satellite images, all the stuff that foreigners are using.

And then they get, or commendations and wealth for finding areas where people are fudging things. All right. So let's

Simone Collins: say first thing you established the department of, and they go out and their job is to just find out what's going on.

Malcolm Collins: Department of transparency. Then you need to re institute goodwill among investors that if they invest in something, they will be able to get their money into and out of the country easily.

That's one of the big things that's going to drive down investment right now, right? As people are terrified that if they put money into China, that the money's never going to be able to come out of China. And because that's true right now, China's basically realized like it's excessive.

You need to suddenly you do that. And all of the money, a lot of the money, this is all going to cause short term pain. All that you're saying was in China's autocratic system that apparently can think long term, even though it [00:38:00] definitely can't. No,

Simone Collins: You are a long termist autocrat. You need

Malcolm Collins: to, you need to, basically all of this is around developing investor confidence.

You need to develop investor confidence, long term investor confidence with foreign investors. That is the. First core thing you need to do. So all, everything involved in that, not jailing making things. If somebody achieves a certain level of wealth, you're not just going to go after them.

You're not going to, all of that stuff. So investor competence is thing. Number one thing. Number two is fertility collapse is a national security issue right now. And I may even put it under the purview of the military focusing on artificial wombs in the lake.

Simone Collins: Oh, so just invest heavily in science.

Heavily

Malcolm Collins: in science and genetics.

Simone Collins: Right, but what good will artificial wombs do you if no one wants to have kids anyway, whether or not they get pregnant?

Malcolm Collins: You have the state raise them.

Simone Collins: Huh. So you would encourage the first ever government [00:39:00] funded human production

Malcolm Collins: plan. I think if you do those two things simultaneously and big enough.

I guess

Simone Collins: you could, would you, this is very dystopian, but would you Offer to pay women a a living wage to carry pregnancies to term. And then if they don't want to raise those children, No, but I

Malcolm Collins: wouldn't disallow anyone from a high level government position with less than four kids.

Simone Collins: So to say, I know the anti cat lady tenure policy.

I think

Malcolm Collins: you need to create,

Simone Collins: and you might need to create But that's nobody, because no one has been allowed to have a lot of kids. No, there,

Malcolm Collins: It's been long enough under the three child policy and loosen one child restrictions. What?

Simone Collins: Come on, when was the three child policy, No, when was

Malcolm Collins: one child policy loosened?

Simone Collins: No. Because it was still culturally so discouraged. They're basically no. The policy was formally passed into [00:40:00] law by the National People's Congress, the National Legislature of China on August 20th, 2021. With this one child

Malcolm Collins: policy. Simone, the one child policy was loosened in 2016. Loosened!

Simone Collins: Loosened!

Malcolm Collins: You could say this is the thing and this is where everybody gets things wrong.

They always blame us on the one child policy, but the problem is that fertility rate now in China is lower than it ever was under the one child policy. And that's a culture problem. I just, I'm not

Simone Collins: going to listen. You shouldn't penalize people for not having a lot of kids. You under Xi Jinping in China during COVID in China, would you be having kids?

No, you would be shouting. We are the last generation along with everybody else. Yes, and those people need

Malcolm Collins: to be penalized. That's the exact point I'm making, Simone. You need to penalize people who are investing in your career. No, you shouldn't penalize

Simone Collins: people who are making smart and logical decisions.

Malcolm Collins: I disagree strongly.

That's the only way you create a cultural change. In fact, I would go further. I may disallow [00:41:00] salaries above a certain amount to people who have less than a certain number of kids. I would tap your max possible salary To the number of Children you have, which will quickly create the perception that more kids means more wealth.

Simone Collins: No, I would that's a fun That's a fun concept to reconnect from just from a policy perspective in general, because the thing in the past and why people would have a lot of kids aside from, other cultural reasons was the more kids you had, the more wealthy you were. And if we just reconnect those in some way.

Either, of course, through progressive tax breaks for the more kids you have, but also just through other means. Yeah, the more kids you have, the more money you're allowed to earn or something. It's just the level of dystopian control that you have to have over a people to do that. It's too much. Aren't we too libertarian for that?

You and I

Malcolm Collins: No, but you're It's different from what I want for America. China is [00:42:00] culturally different from America. Okay

Simone Collins: so yeah, you're trying to come up with a solution that certainly doesn't fit with our cultural values, that is more coercive, that is more I'm not gonna say evil. That is just Creepy because you're like, this is going to work for them.

Yes.

Malcolm Collins: You're saying if I was in China, what would I do? Like the person who's I'd started democracy is an idiot. That is not what you would do. You need to fix the problem in a Chinese way. What's actually going to work.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. I could see a kind of China making human production army thing with artificial worms.

They could pull off the look. I feel mean saying that I, again, respect China, I was really, I was on like a five. Did I tell you about my five hour bus ride to. Zhang Xiaojie from Changsha, it's about five hours, like some [00:43:00] guy had this cell phone that constantly kept ringing and it was just children's choirs singing Christmas songs in English.

And they were chewing this thing that smelled incredibly strong, like throughout this bus that just made me want to vomit the whole time. And we're on these twisting roads. So I'm just hearing children's choirs singing Christmas songs and smelling this putrid smell of whatever it is people are chewing and spitting out on the bus.

Malcolm Collins: It's Betelgeuse, probably.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): Badal nuts are an addictive stimulant that's chewed in parts of China. Particularly the Southern provinces, such as a non. A high nine

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Betelgeuse

Simone Collins: did not smell good. So they were, I've had good moments and I've had bad moments. But like good moment just before that bus drive, the taxi driver or the taxi cab driver who took me to the bus station where I took that bus was so [00:44:00] concerned about me that he got in to the bus station and helped me buy a ticket and told me where to sit because he was like, girl, what are you doing?

This is not safe. So they're really they're awesome, cool, bro people who help out total nonsense, idiot foreigners who are kind and hardworking and enterprising and creative. And it makes me so sad to think that they're under this level of threat. Damn. But I don't know. I wish there were a less dystopian way to do this.