日本老化带给中国什么样的警示？

choi

(1) 吉密欧, 日本温泉小镇带给中国什么样的警示？  金融时报, Feb 6, 2018
www.ftchinese.com/story/001076232

Is translated from

Jamil Anderlini, A Cautionary Tale from an Ageing Japan for China; More immigration would be a solution but Tokyo has never wavered in opposing foreign infiltration.  
The country’s demographic decline comes in the wake of a housing boom. Financial Times, Feb 1, 2018 (at page 9, which is headlined by Comment but usually called op-ed in other newspapers).
https://www.ft.com/content/7fe77124-05dc-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5

Quote:

“Echigo Yuzawa seems to have everything going for it. Just one hour and 15 minutes from Tokyo by bullet train, the charming mountain town is famed for its onsen 温泉 [same as 湯 in Japan] — or hot springs — excellent skiing and as the home of Japan's best rice and sake. * * * Yasunari KAWABATA 川端 康成 became the first Japanese author to win Nobel Prize for his 1968 novel Snow Country 雪国. Set in early 20th century Echigo Yuzawa, it tells the story of a minor Tokyo aristocrat's [Shimamura 島村] love affair with a small-town geisha [Komako 駒子, modeled after geisha Matsu-ei 松栄, whom Kawabata met in this town when she was 19 and he 35]. Today * * * Estate agents estimate 75 per cent of apartments in the area are vacant.

"Last year, 17.23m babies were born in China, a drop of 630,000 from a year earlier despite Beijing scrapping its decades-old 'one-child policy' in late 2015. The working age population increased by around 380m between 1980 and 2012, and this is probably the single biggest factor behind China's incredible economic expansion of the past few decades.  While the country’s overall population is growing slowly, the number of workers has been shrinking since 2012.

"Today you can get on a sleek bullet train in Beijing and ride across the country and all you will see outside your window for most of the trip are half-built or empty apartment blocks.

Note:
(a) This essay is available for free (once only) -- that is, not locked behind paywall. However, there is no need to read the rest, which is familiar to us.
(b) The quotations 2 and 3 above are all about China, not Japan.
(c)
(i) Echigo-Yuzawa Station 越後湯沢駅 (is a railway station operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East), located in the resort town of Yuzawa in Niigata Prefecture 新潟県 湯沢町)
(ii) The present-day 新潟県 is about where the ancient Echigo Province 越後国 was.
(iii) Shinkansen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen
(in the only map: JR East routes are colored green. The green line straight up to the north includes Echigo-Yuzawa (Station) )
(d) Elena Holodny, China's Working Age Population Peaked. Business Insider, Apr 4, 2016.
http://www.businessinsider.com/c ... ation-peaked-2016-4

View the bar chart only.

choi

(2) Letter to editor:
Richard Cragg, Property oversupply has added to China’s problems. Financial Times, Feb 5, 2018, whose full text is as follows:
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Sir, Jamil Anderlini is right to warn that demographically speaking, where Japan leads, China follows -- and there is nothing the latter can do about it ('A cautionary tale for China from an ageing Japan,' February 1). If fertility rates were to double tomorrow, it would take two decades for the extra babies to join the workforce or form their own families. But China has compounded its problems -- in particular by overexposure to property/ construction-related activities. Annual completions of apartments have outstrippedthe growth in household formation for years, but the growing oversupply has been mitigated by demolitions and camouflaged by 'investment' buyers; 28 per cent of families own at least one property that is vacant.

If confidence in property as an appreciating asset were dented, it would have far-reaching implications, for the townships that depend on land sales for their income and the bank that finance them. It might also persuade households to return It might also persuade households to return to their traditional investment, gold. Keep your eyes on property prices as the lead indicator for this sea change.

Richard Cragg
Kingston-upon-Thames
Surrey, UK