The Collapse of China

This past Wednesday I went up to the University of Minnesota-Duluth to listen to Gordon G. Chang speak on China. Before the lecture many people were talking about how this was going to be a very provocative and controversial talk. Right away I could tell that Gordon Chang is a man that isn’t afraid to make bold statements when he said, “China will collapse by 2011.” After starting out with this bold prediction he went into detail. He stated that their banking system is shot because of bad loans, their water supply is running low, and their big cities are terribly polluted thanks to industry. He said that China might be able to deal with these problems one at a time, but the problem is that they are all happening at once. China is also facing an ageing population because of the one child policy, and the ratio of men to women is thrown off because of abortions. Mr. Chang cites all of these problems and the fact that a Communist government cannot coexist with a free market economy as the reasons for China’s coming collapse. The Olympics are not helping the situation either as the government is not doing anything right now to make sure nothing ruins their Olympics. At the end of the evening I had to say that I agreed with most of what Mr. Chang said. I think that his timetable is a little ambitious, but the Communist party in China will fall eventually if their free market economy keeps moving forward.