Is China on the verge of Cultural Revolution 2.0? IMO, yes.

[CK_John]

The interference in Hong Kong, the scene at the tarmac with Air Force One.

There is a dangerous struggle between the hardcore Military wing and the party wing which is trying to correct a 40yrs mistake of single child family, which lead to billions of spoiled brats..

The military wing have ordered 8 supersize nuclear power icebreakers and floating nuclear power plants.

Also they are flooding business and civilian settlers into Siberia east of the Ural Mountains, which have long been considered the traditional boundary/dividing line between
Europe and Asia..

Get ready for dueling Russia and China aircraft carriers in the Bering Strait.

[Warpy]

1. The Cultural Revolution was mostly an internal matter

driven by party dogma in which the educated needed to be re-educated out of old patterns of thinking by party peasants. I know a professor who cleaned toilets for five years. He said his toilets were very clean. It left the country years behind where they should have been in science and technology, especially. I sincerely doubt they will repeat that particular mistake.

The problems with the one child policy are the "bare branches," the surplus males with no hope of marrying supporting their parents and grandparents by themselves. The "little emperors" of early childhood have grown up into decent adults, mostly.

Add wealth concentration to that and the horrific social problems become magnified. While China has moved to increase wages for labor, there is still enormous wealth disparity and the go-go economy is losing a lot of steam these days.

Some of that will be expressed by military activity. Their main rivals have always been India and Russia.

[GoDawgs]

5. India will do her best to keep a defensive posture, put it off as long as possible

and neutralize the Gwadar facilities (and Pakistan corridor), keep the Indian ocean Indian. Their land border has been a source of conflict but sustained combat is so difficult there.

The two big questions would be:
what would Pakistan do, and can they be effectively controlled?
How long until one of three escalates to nuclear weapons?

A website which often discusses matters Chinese, Russian & Indian and they interact is the diplomat

http://thediplomat.com

[Coyotl]

2. They are about to launch an immense new fleet of

sushi trucks.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Yes, because there's no difference between China and Japan. nt

[Coyotl]

13. No, because sushi would be a cultural revolution in China

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/11/restaurants-serve-cultural-revolution-nostalgia/

[LeftyMom]

3. Your futurist threads are my one of my favorite parts of DU.

Can you warn us all when you're writing one so I can grab a beer and start working on enough of a buzz to appreciate them properly?

[TheBlackAdder]

4. China is positioned to become the new hegenomic state by 2050, as the US & EU population ages.

[Red Mountain]

8. in 2050 China's median age will be 46

in the US it will be 41. India will be 37 and Pakistan 34.

India is expected to be the most populous nation at 1.6 billion. China's population is almost stable at 1.4 billion.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/01/30/chapter-2-aging-in-the-u-s-and-other-countries-2010-to-2050/

[TheBlackAdder]

14. Yes, but China has multitudes in population, meaning there are more working-aged citizens.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. No, the point is that China's population will have aged a lot

so that India's working age population will be far larger.

Here's the UN figures for the 4 countries mentioned (you can construct you own query at https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/DataQuery/ ; these are thousands, so, for instance, China will have 61 million aged 15-19) :

________15-19 __20-24 __25-29 __30-34 __35-39 __40-44 __45-49 __50-54 __55-59 __60-64 __65-69

China___61,173_ 62,073_ 67,549_ 77,022_ 81,104_ 76,331_ 72,615_ 75,630_ 100,889 120,142 88,458
India___115,508 118,390 119,587 119,576 117,950 120,587 118,800 113,238_ 105,305 95,708_ 81,192
Pakistan_24,769_ 24,297_ 24,322_ 24,188_ 23,071_ 20,540_ 17,887_ 17,344_ 15,933_ 13,813_ 10,358
USA____23,202_ 23,735_ 24,134_ 23,992_ 23,331_ 23,988_ 23,414_ 22,688_ 24,174_ 21,856_ 20,648

You can see that India will have more people than China in all age categories below 60 - almost twice as many under 24. The agre groups in China after the 'one child per family' policy have shrunk dramatically.

[tritsofme]

12. That is pretty...well wrong. China is poised to grow old before

they grow rich.

[GoDawgs]

6. You posed a really interesting question. I would ask

Would the Chinese citizenry be the greatest wildcard in such a scenario? Would they support one faction over the other- Or sit it out- Or bypass both factions and go to full revolution into a new form of govt?

Despite all of the recent integration, Taiwan has more in common with Hong Kong than the mainland proper, that would be a big unknown to factor in also.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Only if the supreme court is replaced with self driving cars.

[CK_John]

9. The future must terrify you, here is the Michigan bill.

Michigan Puts Forward Bill to Allow Use of Driverless Cars On Public Roads

Read more:
http://www.businessfinancenews.com/29154-michigan-puts-forward-bill-to-allow-use-of-driverless-cars-on-public-roads/

[Warren Stupidity]

16. OMFG with robots doing all the driving when are people going to have time for facebook?

[Codeine]

10. 250% unemployment by December. nt