A top economist has joined the growing list of China’s elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.

CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China’s cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a “body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership.”

According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China’s sluggish economy and criticizing Xi’s leadership in a private group on WeChat.

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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        3 months ago

        Even then, it isn’t healthy, just healthier. The USA is still going to going to experience economic issues of a growing elderly population, it just won’t be as bad.

        • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          The US have the benefit of essentially limitless immigration that they can adjust at will. On the other hand, China’s leadership, being Han supremacist, is not receptive to immigration at all.

          • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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            3 months ago

            Immigration definitely helps, especially compared to China. I’m just noting that there will still be some decrease in the ratio of retired workers to current workers.

          • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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            3 months ago

            Have you… have you seen how Americans have been talking about the border? Especially this election cycle? I don’t know if would characterize either party’s constituencies as “receptive”.

            • Zorque@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              You realize there’s more to immigration than the border between Mexico and the US, right?

              I know they ignore it, but you don’t have to follow along with them.

              • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                50 million immigrants in the US, and that data is 5 years old. Germany comes in second with 13 million. It’s not even close. I don’t see how a demographic crisis could happen, even if they hypothetically cut immigration in half

              • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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                3 months ago

                Was there supposed to be some argument or statement attached to this source, or…?

                • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  The US has the highest volume of immigrants in the world, 50x more than China. With or without a reduction of new immigrants that number will remain high.

                  • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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                    3 months ago

                    Sure, the US has an advantage in raw number of immigrants versus China. No one is arguing that.

                    My point is that touting “our melting-pot-loving leaders” versus “their Han-supremacist demagogues” at the height of your unprecedented devolution into fascism isn’t quite the own you think it is.

            • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              It’s all talk. Corpos crave dirt cheap desperate immigrant workers and will make sure neither party messes this up.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            The US have the benefit of essentially limitless immigration

            glances at US immigration policy

            Does it?

            China’s leadership, being Han supremacist, is not receptive to immigration at all.

            Wit drier than a lint trap.

            • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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              3 months ago

              Coming from one of the foremost resident tankies here, that’s a glowing compliment. Thank you.

            • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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              3 months ago

              Does it?

              People still pay upwards of $10,000 US to get smuggled into the country that they will only work in for 4 years as basic farm and factory workers in a house of 20 people.

              The world is a mess and America is the gold mines of california with no gold in it. But a lot of people are getting rich selling immigrants the shovels.

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                People still pay upwards of $10,000 US to get smuggled into the country that they will only work in for 4 years as basic farm and factory workers in a house of 20 people.

                You’re just describing human trafficking. This is modern slavery. Might as well brag about all the Africans who moved here in the 18th and 19th centuries.

                The world is a mess and America is the gold mines of california

                Who can forget the huge influx of East Asian immigrants flooding into the California gold mines to be worked to death in the mines? Another excellent example of American prosperity.

                • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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                  3 months ago

                  Oh it’s awful but I’m saying people are paying the privilege to be treated like shit in the US cause it’s “better” than their crumbling local country or beats the idea of their false impression of their crumbling country of origin.

                  I didn’t brag about it. But the US sure does have this happening at a rate hard to be ignored.

                  I mean I literally used an example that is historically known to have been basically a scam to import cheap labor and you still got defensive and hostile.

                  Your need to be right will kill any conversation you are part of.

                • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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                  3 months ago

                  Also you are wrong about how the east asian populace in California was used, as it often wasn’t about working the mines as much as them racking up a debt trying to get rich and then owing money so that they could be used as cheap labor elsewhere. God do you even actually have a point or is it just be angry at whatever people say?

                  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    it often wasn’t about working the mines as much as them racking up a debt trying to get rich

                    That’s debt peonage. And debt peonage is enforced through the violence of loan sharks, who serve the same function as overseers in a plantation system. African slaves were also roped into debt peonage as the first step in African export. You get told you owe X and have to work Y years to pay it off, then you get placed on a ship and sent halfway around the world to spend your most productive years working for someone else.

                    When you’re exhausted, you’re disposed of. There’s never any real promise of “repaid debts”. Its just a social convention used to gull people into working for free.

                    God do you even actually have a point

                    Yes. But the point offends you, so you’re closing your ears to it.

          • rammer@sopuli.xyz
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            3 months ago

            The US have the benefit of essentially limitless immigration

            Except that even in the Americas the population is declining. There is a limit to it. The US can outlast many other countries because of immigration but it too has to face the same problem as everyone else.

            • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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              3 months ago

              Not really. They are the #1 immigration destination. If the US runs out of potential immigrants that means every other country is far worse off. This game is like the old joke about outrunning a bear: you don’t need to run faster than the bear — you only need to be faster than the guy next to you.

        • Shard@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          This is the new normal for highly developed economies. The best they can hope for is a 1 to 1 replacement of their population. We’re not likely to see another baby boom occur.

          We’re not going to see a typical population pyramid any more. Because that means a large infant death rate and either war, disasters or a massive suicide epidemic cutting away the young adult population to get the pyramid shape.

          • zbyte64@awful.systems
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            3 months ago

            Given that the amount of habitable land will decrease causing mass migrations, you don’t need a 1 to 1 ratio to maintain a population size.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          it just won’t be as bad.

          glances at Ferguson

          glances at Columbia

          glances at the NYC subway

          How bad are we talking?

        • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          Basically, yes. The sides are nearly parallel, which is great. Compare with China’s, which forms a steep V. Once GenX hits retirement age they are completely screwed. The CCP’s recent push for “traditional family values” and increased birth rates is no coincidence.

    • Eheran@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The birthing rates are only dropping, in 15 years all of those people will be to old to work but there are not nearly enough to replace them.