Up until recently I felt that China’s economic growth was unstoppable and that it would indeed surpass the U.S. and keep going into a bright future.

However, researching more, I concluded that healthy land use for agriculture (such as organic farming) and minimizing industrial pollution are even more important than economic prosperity. China doesn't have them; we do.

The dysfunctional running of the centralized banking system by the CCP is also major handicap for the economy.

Now, if you merely compare a dollar's worth of the Chinese economy to that of the U.S., it seems that China is doing rather well, being second in the world, and net exporting about $400 billion a year in 2020.

IMF data from 2018 show that China’s debt to GDP ratio is 55.36%, while U.S. debt to GDP ratio is 106.7% or almost twice as large as China’s.

Total wealth in 2020 of the U.S. is $105,990 billion and China is $63,827 billion or about half that of the U.S.

However, I am beginning to feel sorry for the Chinese people who are being victimized by the corporatist or state capitalism which is rapidly turning Chinese land into a toxic cesspool, with devastating health impacts on the people.

It's short duration profits at the expense of public health. It is no wonder that the U.S., E.U., and Japan do not allow the import of some Chinese foodstuffs which contain unhealthy additives, dangerous drug residues, and unsanitary characteristics. Crop pollution is not prominently mentioned in the news. but many Chinese citizens have little confidence in the food which they consume.

The banking sector is terribly inefficient because it is under centralized CCP control. There's this from Foreign Policy (subscription):

State owned enterprises are inefficient financial behemoths. The large-scale privatization of state-owned enterprises is a good place to start. These inefficient behemoths control nearly $30 trillion in assets and consume roughly 80 percent of the country’s available bank credit, but they contribute only between 23 and 28 percent of GDP. The efficiency gains that would be unleashed by reining in the state’s direct role in the economy would be more than enough to compensate for the loss of the U.S. market.

There's this, too, from The 21st Century:

China‘s Growing Agriculture Crisis

F. William Engdahl on 2020-09-07

For the past months the Peoples’ Republic of China has been subject to one after the other devastating shocks to its agriculture sector. A deadly outbreak of African Swine Fever that halved China’s huge pig herds in 2019, was followed by infestation from a plague of fall armyworms (FAW) which reached China in December, 2018 and now threaten China’s corn belt.

Now the worst floods in some 60 years is wiping out major rice and other crops in central China along the Yangtze and other rivers. Food Security is one of six national priorities for national security. President Xi Jinping has just issued a call to citizens not to waste food or face penalties, a sign that the depth of the food security threat is far worse than thought.

Not mentioned is the fact that pollution from pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and toxic runoff into rivers is making many crops not that healthy for human consumption so the long term prognosis for agriculture is not that rosy.

Industrial pollution

Perhaps half of all Chinese—a staggering 600 million people—drink water that is contaminated by human or animal waste. These people are subjected to waterborne disease and a myriad of human health concerns related to the use of polluted water.

China’s major river systems exhibit the scope of the problem. Perhaps 70 percent of their water is so polluted that it has been deemed unsafe for human contact. In addition to untreated sewage released into these waterways, high-growth industries such as textiles, paper manufacturing, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals account for a large share of this pollution.

At dumps, toxic runoff often percolates through the earth to contaminate groundwater aquifers. Untreated mining and industrial waste leaves some waters contaminated with such high metal content that they literally run red with rust-colored water. Lead levels have been recorded in Chinese rivers that are some 44 times greater than accepted norms.

China is paying dearly for supplying the world with low-cost manufactured goods and the long duration health of its people is in serious danger. I despise the CCP for its disregard of human rights and tyrannical rule. I now despise the CCP because it is screwing the long duration health of Chinese citizens and turning the country into a toxic cesspool. If you don’t have your health, then all the money in the world won’t buy it back. To me China’s future does not look bright at all.

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License

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