Asia's total GDP is approximately 42 trillion. More than half of that, close to 24 trillion, is China and Japan. India is next with between 4-5 trillion, meaning over 60% of Asia's GDP is China, Japan, and India.
Off the top of my head, and by no means a comprehensive or exhaustive list.
First and foremost, bad institutions and a corrupt political culture foster corruption and ineffective policies in the Indian bureaucracy. Second, opportunities abroad draw talented Indians to work in the Anglosphere since there is already an existing language similarity in English. China suffered from a similar phenomenon in the 90s/00s, but has since been drawing a significant amount of Western-educated talent back. Lastly, it cannot ride the tailwinds of globalization as China did before 2015, due to protectionist policies in the West and what I call industrial competitive advantage, but others would call industrial overcapacity in China.
Honestly its 99% corruption, every news article i've ever read about an issue in India contains a sentence akin to "this issue has been known for X years and the solution is Y, but local/state government is preventing the solution"
Well but you also have to consider that China’s miraculous economic boom was during late 1980s to 2010s - arguably THE Definitive period for Globalism and trade.
Corruption in every sector of the government. It distracts people by turning religious groups against each other. We have a leader who is an actual thug (and he's illiterate as icing on the cake). We have incredibly talented and well educated mass but they are essentially blocked from having meaningful impact on the country. Those that are smart get rich and stay in their own bubble. Everyone thinks of their own and their families and the rest goes to hell.
Case in point, Delhi, the capital. It's one of the most polluted places on Earth and the pollution arrives every year around the same time in winter. For a city that small, so much of it is under-developed and broken. Colonies where minorities (hint: Muslims) live don't see any development. Around the election time, they brings the pipes and the bricks just to show that they are "serious" about development but they remain there for years. The rivers that flow through the city are so filthy that you get a new disease every time you step in. This is all just from what I have seen with my own eyes. The best parts of the city, unsurprisingly, are where the parliament is, the rest is a broken and overpacked mess. Oh and another interesting bit, they developed a small enclosed area right outside the airport with a bunch of fancy hotels and eateries to "show" development but it's just a facade.
India is all potential and little progress. Indians are some of the smartest people on the planet. The kids I met there have perfect English, dress well and know everything you will know after living in the west. They are smart and capable and they know they have no future in the country, so they leave the first opportunity they get.
I hope it gets better, I really do. If we can get our act together, we can do great things as country. We have a rich culture and deep deep history. We could transform it into a tourist hub, we have everything from jungles, to mountains, to beaches, to a desserts, to islands. We are incredibly blessed geographically. We are the largest democracy on Earth. The humans there are incredibly beautiful and hardworking. We have hope, a lot of hope and that makes me happy but the current state of the country is just not good.
It's like I am reading about Brazil. In the 90s when I was studying, Brazil's economy was much bigger than China and we made fun of their low quality products, 30 years later China is a Super Power living in the future and we are the in the same place. Always the country of the future that never comes, all due to widespread corruption among all political parties, here, left and right doesn't mean anything they rob us the same. 1st world when it comes to collecting taxes and 3rd world when it comes to spending it.
The key point about the education thing was china had a strong baseline level of education in the 80s, their literacy rate was only 66% in 1980, but compared to India's 40%, it was a world of difference. This is important because if you want to hire an army of factory workers, you need to be sure they can read, write, and do basic math
Indian here: This video is the best explanation to your question that I have ever seen. Honest and no bullshit. And this is LKY speaking btw. https://youtu.be/yEXAV2f0YLQ
Note the date when LKY is speaking. It’s in 2009, long before the current government came into power.
was so confused when i read it + only returns some emperor when you search, funny to see everyone else replying just continue to say guangzong none the wiser
We’re basically just dick measuring here but if California were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest economy. About 4 trillion putting it between Germany and Japan.
The Netherlands is in the top 25% in terms of population in Europe. 12/51 and that's including all countries which have any land even if just a tiny amount in Europe like Turkey and Kazakhstan so in a practical sense it should be higher. So in terms of population, it's actually one of the larger European countries, no UK or France but it holds its own.
Also the Netherlands has the highest population density of any non-microstate in Europe, so its a bit of a cherry picked example.
It's not that simple. If it were a country it would be subject to tariffs trading with the US. It wouldn't have access to the vast US market as easily as it does now being part of the USA. It most certainly would not have as large a GDP.
There are other benefits like they can spend less on military, especially if they get into NATO. Also no subsidizing poorer states. Since cali sends more in taxes than it gets back.
Also Cali can implement all the liberal policies it wants. Like universal healthcare. Some can be good, some can be bad economically.
But it’s not all Cali would be worse off. Could be better off…
California can't print it's own money, so it has limits. It has a shortfall of $18 billion for 2026-27, expected to grow to $35 billion for 2027-28 due to decreased revenue and mandatory spending.
In addition, unfunded pension debt is at $270 billion.
Unfortunately, both issues are structural, meaning they've been building for years and there isn't a solution to reverse the trend. With housing prices declining, sales tax revenue decreasing, population decreasing/stagnating and getting older, it's not going to be easy to fix.
The main bright spot is tech/finance, but that is concentrated in a small number of people/companies, and if/when that experiences a downturn, it will disproportionately hit California.
Shenzhen is the biggest city in Guangdong. Guangzhou is the provincal capital city but it's the second largest city in Guangdong by both local GDP and population.
Larger share than the numbers even indicate because of "internal migration" (which is a concept I haven't seen in any other country). Because of archaic 19th century household registration system can't easily change to where they actually live and instead they are classified as temporary internal migrants who come there for work. So they but not counted in most official statistics but in reality the vast majority of Chinese population live near the coast.
Because of archaic 19th century household registration system can't easily change to where they actually live and instead they are classified as temporary internal migrants who come there for work. So they but not counted in most official statistics
Your statement is outdated. The current demographics of Chinese cities are based on the permanent population. There is no more situation that you mentioned that citizens who migrate outside their registered residence are "not counted in most official statistics" now.
I completely disagree. This map is about how economic power has changed over time, obviously that's related to population densities, but the interesting point is about how this has changed. It wouldn't make sense to show this data while correcting for population density (like it would for murders per km2 for example).
Just makes me think, it would have been nice to visit Japan in the mid 90s.
That's what people say anyway, Japan is what the future looks like, from the view point of the 90s.
This is funny - I remember leaving a comment on another sub about Japan and someone replied something similar, that Japan has been living in the year 2005 since 1985.
Companies and people in Japan became massively focused on debt minimization rather than profit maximization. This has led to interesting consequences like negative interest rates and a refusal to accept higher prices. Japan is looking more normal now tho.
Turkey is different. Turkey is going through rapid inflation like what happened to Argentina but through severe mismanagement that has an obvious solution to most economists. Argentina is kind of an enigma because no one has quite cracked how to fix their situation and overall compared to the rest of the world outside the US and Europe they are still quite developed.
It's legit crazy how they've been able to maintain such high levels of quality of life while stagnating for about as long as I've been alive. Here in Canada we didn't even stagnate and our quality of life noticable deceased.
I maintain that canada would be a completely fine place to live if we had affordable housing. Its the only really issue here for the middle class. Yes groceries are high but our wages are good enough to pay for that with reasonable housing
And housing is an entirely self-created problem. China has been building new homes at an absurd rate - so much so that they had an entire housing bubble because of oversupply, and there were/are entire "ghost cities" full of apartment complexes lying empty. Meanwhile in the USA/Canada a single new building in an urban area is a cause for celebration. No shit there's a housing crisis.
there is an economic saying, that says that there are 4 types of economies; Developed, Developing, Japan and Argentina, these 2 behave outside of the rule because Argentina isn't a developed country (developing backwards) while having a big country and plenty of resources while the opposite happens with Japan, where despite not having a lot of resources, its still a developed economy
i thought the saying was more related to their idiosyncratic economies (Argentina's economy crashing every 15 years) and Japan being stagnant for a 3 decades
There's a number of different economic phenomena that are unique to Japan.
For example, the Bank of Japan had negative interest rates until last year. Japan also experienced deflation or negative inflation for about a decade.
Japan is also one of the rare developed countries where rent / housing prices have remained stagnant for 40 years. Consumers prefer new houses over old houses very heavily, and with the addition of new earthquake proof regulations, the price of houses generally depreciate rather than appreciate.
Plenty of countries are big, rich in resources and yet very poor. Think of the DRC. At the same time there are plenty of super wealthy countries that have little natural resources. Like Switzerland or Singapore.
If the answer is “international trade” and not the actions of the Chinese government, why is China leaping ahead whilst India continues to languish in poverty?
India has a very protectionist economy. I will admit that there are other factors. China had a strong central government as well as governors and mayors that were solely focused on development. India has governors and mayors that are focused on tribal politics.
China is quite a protectionist economy too. Part of the benefit for them, of the firewall, is that it means that the market is filled with Chinese companies that would otherwise be uncompetitive. Baidu instead of Google, WeChat instead of everything, etc. China also required all foreign companies initially when coming in during reforms to partner with local companies.
Protectionist policies are fairly common though, you see countries often try to protect their domestic economies. Why do you think South Korea banned Twitch and has restrictions on Google Maps? Even if it comes at a slight harm to consumers, it may be worth it if it supports a real domestic sector. India’s issues are more related to other problems like severe corruption, lack of universal literacy, conflict between cultures, political groups, etc.
The U.S. has tons of protectionism measures like agricultural subsidies, patent and copyright rule enforcement, rules of origin, though health standards are… questionable. Or checks are.
The very key difference is China's protectionism is actually focused on China as a whole long term. China being so far ahead on rare earth minerals, for example, is due to decision making in the early and mid 2000s.
The US focuses on benefit for US only in so far as it benefits corporations and maintains certain foreign policies (Israel, contain China, etc). Also the US has lots of infighting between alphabet agencies, elected administration, and corporations.
India meanwhile is extremely corrupt so their decision makers focus almost exclusively on personal gain, which actually significantly hinders development.
I think the stable dictatorship also allow for proper long term planning as well. They could make a plan that will fucked up the country for 5 years, then yield beautiful fruit in 20 years.
In democratic country, no one would dare to do that. It would be career ending move, while handing the goods to the opposition to swoop in and replace it.
To my knowledge, South Korea never banned twitch, Twitch had to leave SK because SK allows ISPs to charge companies based on the bandwidth used for those companies, and streaming uses a ton of bandwidth so it just wasn’t feasible for Twitch.
Twitch had to leave SK because SK allows ISPs to charge companies based on the bandwidth used
While the South Korean ISPs own their own streaming services, iirc. So the domestic platforms like Afreeca etc are essentially a free ride in comparison.
alright say what you want but wechat is the goated software. Yeah government will get all your info but they already do? I honestly wouldn't mind having a hub for that in the US so you don't gotta be connecting with people on instagram snapchat facebook texting tiktok and 50 different apps all at the same time. Baidu sucks.
Both are true. China had used the opportunity the open trade provided to reinvest into homeland economy, India didn't do it anywhere close to the same extent and instead a lot of smaller officials used it to fight their rivals. It's not something the Chinese state could have just done without the opportunity afforded, they just actually capitalized on it
India liberalized to trade about a decade later and reforms have been slower due to it being a diverse democracy. India has grown 10x in the last 30 years and is continuing to grow relatively fast.
China was in it for the long game. Be way cheaper than the next thing. People will be laughing but still buying. Eventually they will stop laughing and realise they can't buy elsewhere at scale and that's when China has the last laughter as it uses your past greed to blackmail you into submission at any moment..
International trade is only one part of the equation. They’ve also had massive state-directed capital investment, strong competition policy, and leveraged their large labor force to obtain the intellectual property necessary for high-value industries.
It's like an enlightened dictatorship through democratic committee. The party members who rise due so in large part due to their proven ability in administration. And the party is wary of pissing off the population for fear of a revolution, just like with an enlightened monarchy.
So it's like an enlightened meritocratic autocracy.
Reading Marx unironically makes you a better capitalist because you actually understand what you're doing, unlike the Western capitalists who are destroying the economy every five years
In 1995, Japan’s economy was larger than all of Asia combined. Fast forward to today, and its GDP is now smaller than just four Chinese provinces — Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Fujian.
The 4 provinces listed are ranked 2, 9, 4, and 8 in terms of GDP/province (out of 31 total provinces). In that order from top to bottom on the map.
The top 4 provinces are Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and Zhejiang. Total GDP in USD 6.6 Trillion about 2 Trillion higher than the sum of the 4 listed on the map.
Japan should have a $10 trillion economy today. It has just a little under half the population of the US and per capita its GDP used to be higher than that of the US.
Why “should” it have a $10Tn economy? That would mean it should be double the size of Germany on an island nation with several large mountainous regions and nothing like the same kinds of resources and useable land.
The two largest economies in the world are, unsurprisingly, two of the largest countries physically. More land supports a larger population and supports larger industry. More land also means more diverse resources available, so you don’t need to trade externally for them as much.
Well, the Four Asian Tigers (South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan) were hailed as potential mini-Japans back when Japan was at its apex. Now the four combined are about as big as Japan economically and all four have higher GDP per capita.
In other words, Japan has joined a very exclusive club of former Colonial powers that actually got surpassed by former colonies in economic prosperity. Britain is the only other unambiguous member of that club. Possibly with France and Portugal as edge cases.
Or just index by quality of life/purchasing power. I live in California with a huge GDP but the benefits don’t trickle down in terms of infrastructure, progress, or quality of life to most people. Rent and real estate is unaffordable and quality of life hasn’t changed that much despite GDP increasing dramatically.
If me and my neighbor stop mowing our own lawns and decide to mow each other's lawn but charge $1000 each then the GDP of lawn mowing goes from $0 to $2000 with no production change.
China's GDP per capita is only around $13,000 right now
If it "only" reaches the GDP per capita of say Spain, which is almost 3x of China's, that means China's total GDP will be around $60 trillion by that time, assuming the same population
I was in China just this last month, everything is so unbelievably cheap that it is obvious China devalues it's currency by a ridiculous amount. They do it to make their exports more competitive, but exports are only like 15% of their economy.
I was in Xi'an, where the terracotta warriors were found, a major tourist attraction city, and you can get a 4 star hotel room for $15 a night, yes that's fifteen dollars, I did not miss a 0. A $2 Didi (their Uber) ride is enough to take you anywhere in the city, up to an hour of driving (all the cars are electric and super nice). Those same fancy techy EVs sell for under $20k. A whole roasted leg of lamb at a decent restaurant is $12 and you don't even get the option to tip. You get a McD's burger for $1 and it's better quality and has more meat in it than any McD's I've had in the States. A big cup of bubble tea is also $1, hell I'm sure I would die of diabetes had I stayed there for another month. It's like everything is priced similar to what you would see here in USD, except it's in RMB and the exchange rate is 1:7.
Depends on the the time it will take. China has a big problem with the population, too. They have too many old people in 3-4 decades, too. The one-child-policy will be probably a curse in some time. Also they have a big male surplus.
One child policy just brings the fertility crisis earlier, they already ended that policy for a decade and now promoting for more babies but ppl just don’t wanna reproduce, and it’s a common problem for East Asian countries, China experienced this a generation earlier due to policy intervention, but even without this policy, it would have followed the same path just like Korea, Japan and Taiwan did.
While the one child policy was very bad policy and definitely had an effect on the demographics of their country, it was not as bad as they originally thought. There is a not so insignificant portion of their population that are effectively undocumented because their parents hid their children from the government, mostly women.
Reminds me of when I told my aunt that my best remote jobs came from China, and she said, "Oh, but isn't that a poor country?" Must have been thinking of 40 years ago.
The fall of Japan is truly one of the most interesting economic phenomenon of our time.
A country that was more or less the world's second superpower after the fall of the USSR and just a blink of an eye later, they've just...stalled out and gotten left behind.
Not really. They've gone from a population of 123 million in 1990 to a population today of....123 million...
When you factor in that during that time the 65+ population has gone from 12% to 30%, it's not surprising that despite productivity increases, the overall economy has stagnated. The same will happen to China in the coming years with their terrible birthrate.
They got ahead because they focused on technology and innovation. Then the aging population, middle management and bureaucracy caught up and their innovation just kind of stopped. China and rest of world kept on, and grew exponentially while Japan just stagnates. I joke around that Japan has been living in 2010 since 1980, meaning they were advanced for 1980 and 1990, but today is 2025 and they are still living in 2010.
Theres not even a fall. They got to where they needed to be and just decided to stay put. Then the armchair economists are like damn Japan could have all had ferraris if only they did certain things right! Now all they have is traditional family dynamics, affordable housing, low inflation (until a few years ago), a for life job, universal healthcare system, low crime, and public transport. How do they get by everyday?!?? How do they fall asleep at night?!?!
Meanwhile other economies near japan still face falling birthrates and high suicide rates. They can do better in departments but none of it is directly related to economics.
How much GDP is the rest of Asia in 2025, excluding China and Japan?
Asia's total GDP is approximately 42 trillion. More than half of that, close to 24 trillion, is China and Japan. India is next with between 4-5 trillion, meaning over 60% of Asia's GDP is China, Japan, and India.
Why is India doing so badly....
Off the top of my head, and by no means a comprehensive or exhaustive list.
First and foremost, bad institutions and a corrupt political culture foster corruption and ineffective policies in the Indian bureaucracy. Second, opportunities abroad draw talented Indians to work in the Anglosphere since there is already an existing language similarity in English. China suffered from a similar phenomenon in the 90s/00s, but has since been drawing a significant amount of Western-educated talent back. Lastly, it cannot ride the tailwinds of globalization as China did before 2015, due to protectionist policies in the West and what I call industrial competitive advantage, but others would call industrial overcapacity in China.
Honestly its 99% corruption, every news article i've ever read about an issue in India contains a sentence akin to "this issue has been known for X years and the solution is Y, but local/state government is preventing the solution"
Well but you also have to consider that China’s miraculous economic boom was during late 1980s to 2010s - arguably THE Definitive period for Globalism and trade.
Dirty politics, the ones who should have developed it moves to usa and uk due to lacks of opportunities
Corruption in every sector of the government. It distracts people by turning religious groups against each other. We have a leader who is an actual thug (and he's illiterate as icing on the cake). We have incredibly talented and well educated mass but they are essentially blocked from having meaningful impact on the country. Those that are smart get rich and stay in their own bubble. Everyone thinks of their own and their families and the rest goes to hell.
Case in point, Delhi, the capital. It's one of the most polluted places on Earth and the pollution arrives every year around the same time in winter. For a city that small, so much of it is under-developed and broken. Colonies where minorities (hint: Muslims) live don't see any development. Around the election time, they brings the pipes and the bricks just to show that they are "serious" about development but they remain there for years. The rivers that flow through the city are so filthy that you get a new disease every time you step in. This is all just from what I have seen with my own eyes. The best parts of the city, unsurprisingly, are where the parliament is, the rest is a broken and overpacked mess. Oh and another interesting bit, they developed a small enclosed area right outside the airport with a bunch of fancy hotels and eateries to "show" development but it's just a facade.
India is all potential and little progress. Indians are some of the smartest people on the planet. The kids I met there have perfect English, dress well and know everything you will know after living in the west. They are smart and capable and they know they have no future in the country, so they leave the first opportunity they get.
I hope it gets better, I really do. If we can get our act together, we can do great things as country. We have a rich culture and deep deep history. We could transform it into a tourist hub, we have everything from jungles, to mountains, to beaches, to a desserts, to islands. We are incredibly blessed geographically. We are the largest democracy on Earth. The humans there are incredibly beautiful and hardworking. We have hope, a lot of hope and that makes me happy but the current state of the country is just not good.
It's like I am reading about Brazil. In the 90s when I was studying, Brazil's economy was much bigger than China and we made fun of their low quality products, 30 years later China is a Super Power living in the future and we are the in the same place. Always the country of the future that never comes, all due to widespread corruption among all political parties, here, left and right doesn't mean anything they rob us the same. 1st world when it comes to collecting taxes and 3rd world when it comes to spending it.
We gotta eat the rich man. They are getting fat and juicy.
I wrote an answer where I tried to answer this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1k51dd7/comment/moemlyc/?context=3
The key point about the education thing was china had a strong baseline level of education in the 80s, their literacy rate was only 66% in 1980, but compared to India's 40%, it was a world of difference. This is important because if you want to hire an army of factory workers, you need to be sure they can read, write, and do basic math
Indian here: This video is the best explanation to your question that I have ever seen. Honest and no bullshit. And this is LKY speaking btw. https://youtu.be/yEXAV2f0YLQ
Note the date when LKY is speaking. It’s in 2009, long before the current government came into power.
China’s provinces are basically countries in scale.
Just like the US States
China Province with the highest gdp is Guangdong at 2 Trillion US Dollars
If it was its own country ,would be the 12 largest economy in the World above Spain and behind Brazil
*Guangdong since I couldn't find what you wrote.
Mixed up Guangdong and Guangzhou probably
No, he created a new province: Guangzhong 广中 (middle Guang)
was so confused when i read it + only returns some emperor when you search, funny to see everyone else replying just continue to say guangzong none the wiser
Even harder for me because I grew up learning their names in Han-Viet Quảng Đông. So every time I hear their english names it trip my brain.
We’re basically just dick measuring here but if California were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest economy. About 4 trillion putting it between Germany and Japan.
It’s not dick measuring, it’s to give a comparison to the most used “California as a country” fact.
Now do Wyoming or Vermont
Looks like Wyoming’s GDP is about $40 billion. Compare that to North Korea’s ~$32 billion….
Honestly thats not as bad as I would have thought considering Wyoming has like 12 people in it
Wyoming is the Thinking Man’s Kansas…
According to wiki's list, Kansas is #85 for GDP if US states were countries. Wyoming is #139 - between Jordan and Cameroon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP#US_states_by_GDP_if_they_were_sovereign_states
That's honestly crazy to see Colorado, Arizona, and Tennessee ahead of Singapore.
While they have some fairly large cities on their own, they aren't exactly what I'd call "densely populated."
Wait, since when did Wyoming's population triple?
Those are gone they we're on a trip, the trip Is over no one lives in Wyoming
Yeah i know
But now you doubly know
And double knowing is the FULL battle
G I JOSSSSSEEEEPPPPPHHHHHHH
The math checks out.
On the other hand, only four US states have a higher population than the Netherlands - one of the smaller countries in Europe.
The Netherlands is in the top 25% in terms of population in Europe. 12/51 and that's including all countries which have any land even if just a tiny amount in Europe like Turkey and Kazakhstan so in a practical sense it should be higher. So in terms of population, it's actually one of the larger European countries, no UK or France but it holds its own.
Also the Netherlands has the highest population density of any non-microstate in Europe, so its a bit of a cherry picked example.
It's not that simple. If it were a country it would be subject to tariffs trading with the US. It wouldn't have access to the vast US market as easily as it does now being part of the USA. It most certainly would not have as large a GDP.
But that would be the same case with Guangzong, too. It’s a moot point
It's a cow's opinion.
I don't have beef with that opinion
Then neither would Guangzong? lol
I guess I'll have to be that d*ck that corrects everyone here that there no such province named "guangzong". Its "guangdong".
All my chinese friends live in Guangndonong province.
There are other benefits like they can spend less on military, especially if they get into NATO. Also no subsidizing poorer states. Since cali sends more in taxes than it gets back.
Also Cali can implement all the liberal policies it wants. Like universal healthcare. Some can be good, some can be bad economically.
But it’s not all Cali would be worse off. Could be better off…
California can't print it's own money, so it has limits. It has a shortfall of $18 billion for 2026-27, expected to grow to $35 billion for 2027-28 due to decreased revenue and mandatory spending.
In addition, unfunded pension debt is at $270 billion.
Unfortunately, both issues are structural, meaning they've been building for years and there isn't a solution to reverse the trend. With housing prices declining, sales tax revenue decreasing, population decreasing/stagnating and getting older, it's not going to be easy to fix.
The main bright spot is tech/finance, but that is concentrated in a small number of people/companies, and if/when that experiences a downturn, it will disproportionately hit California.
There is no province in China called Guangzong.
I thought it was Guangdong?
Guangdong is the province. Guangzhou is its capital and biggest city. I can see the mix-up
Shenzhen is the biggest city in Guangdong. Guangzhou is the provincal capital city but it's the second largest city in Guangdong by both local GDP and population.
Those four provinces have a large share of China's population.
I'm sure it would increase even further if you add Guangdong province (which comprises most of the Pearl River Delta region) and Beijing.
Larger share than the numbers even indicate because of "internal migration" (which is a concept I haven't seen in any other country). Because of archaic 19th century household registration system can't easily change to where they actually live and instead they are classified as temporary internal migrants who come there for work. So they but not counted in most official statistics but in reality the vast majority of Chinese population live near the coast.
Your statement is outdated. The current demographics of Chinese cities are based on the permanent population. There is no more situation that you mentioned that citizens who migrate outside their registered residence are "not counted in most official statistics" now.
It also feels like yet another example of r/peopleliveincities
Economic power is not in rural areas and villages or land. It's in cities and industry, and has been since the industrial revolution.
I completely disagree. This map is about how economic power has changed over time, obviously that's related to population densities, but the interesting point is about how this has changed. It wouldn't make sense to show this data while correcting for population density (like it would for murders per km2 for example).
i mean people lived in those cities in 1995 too.
True, but China's history with industrialization is pretty unique, and hit a massive low point in the mid 90s and didn't really peak until the 2010s.
Please feel free to fact check this, this is all off the dome from an econ course a couple years back.
right, yeah, that's the point. this isn't a "people live in cities" thing, it's a "china rapid industrialization" and "japanese stagnation" thing.
Just makes me think, it would have been nice to visit Japan in the mid 90s. That's what people say anyway, Japan is what the future looks like, from the view point of the 90s.
Well you can go to Japan right now and see what it was like in the mid 90s. Japan has been stuck in the mid 90s since like 1980.
This is funny - I remember leaving a comment on another sub about Japan and someone replied something similar, that Japan has been living in the year 2005 since 1985.
Fax machines still dominate their bureaucracy from what I hear. And floppy disks can still be found here and there.
In the 80s Japan was living in the year 2000.
Still is.
I just had to download a document for the DMV at a scanner in a conbini 😂
Is that why everyone wants to visit? For a shot of that 90s optimism we all miss?
There are three types of economies in the world, developed, developing, and Japan.
And Argentina right? so the saying goes?
There are four types.
We do a little monetary mismanagement
As a treat
Okay, Picard.
Yes. For those unaware, we have Japan, which shouldn't work but does, and Argentina which should work but doesn't.
Does that describe the country or the people?
Respective economies
Lmao
Companies and people in Japan became massively focused on debt minimization rather than profit maximization. This has led to interesting consequences like negative interest rates and a refusal to accept higher prices. Japan is looking more normal now tho.
Argentina and Turkey
Turkey is different. Turkey is going through rapid inflation like what happened to Argentina but through severe mismanagement that has an obvious solution to most economists. Argentina is kind of an enigma because no one has quite cracked how to fix their situation and overall compared to the rest of the world outside the US and Europe they are still quite developed.
Isn't the problem with Argentina that they never stick to whichever corrective measure they're trying.
Turkey mention
I wish we didnt...
Argentina mentioned 🏆, FIFA world cup 2026 champion again
MUCHAAAAAAAACHOOOOOOS
Anulo mufa
Argentina, the first 4th world country.
Dont forget Turkey and Zimbabwe
And Argentina. But we prefer to pretend it doesn't exist
AFUERA!
Tell me about it...
Greetings from Argentina!
It's legit crazy how they've been able to maintain such high levels of quality of life while stagnating for about as long as I've been alive. Here in Canada we didn't even stagnate and our quality of life noticable deceased.
I maintain that canada would be a completely fine place to live if we had affordable housing. Its the only really issue here for the middle class. Yes groceries are high but our wages are good enough to pay for that with reasonable housing
And housing is an entirely self-created problem. China has been building new homes at an absurd rate - so much so that they had an entire housing bubble because of oversupply, and there were/are entire "ghost cities" full of apartment complexes lying empty. Meanwhile in the USA/Canada a single new building in an urban area is a cause for celebration. No shit there's a housing crisis.
"not in my back yard!"
"why can't this generation buy houses? i want grandbabies :("
Pretty much the entirety of the worlds issues are thanks to boomers and their selfish policies.
"things worked fine when I was X, you should be able to make it work" is not an OK mindset to have, because
A) they weren't fine when you were X, there were a bunch of people who were being fucked over and excluded
B) even pretending everything was perfect when you were X, the world has changed in 50 years. Globalization is a hell of a drug.
Housing crisis is 100% the fault of NIMBY boomers that can't handle the house they bought for 12.000 having its value going below 800k.
It's almost as if the economy is not a reliable measure of the average persons quality of life.
Did you know that a graph of Japan's Phillip's Curve actually looks like Japan?
I don't get it
there is an economic saying, that says that there are 4 types of economies; Developed, Developing, Japan and Argentina, these 2 behave outside of the rule because Argentina isn't a developed country (developing backwards) while having a big country and plenty of resources while the opposite happens with Japan, where despite not having a lot of resources, its still a developed economy
i thought the saying was more related to their idiosyncratic economies (Argentina's economy crashing every 15 years) and Japan being stagnant for a 3 decades
There's a number of different economic phenomena that are unique to Japan.
For example, the Bank of Japan had negative interest rates until last year. Japan also experienced deflation or negative inflation for about a decade.
Japan is also one of the rare developed countries where rent / housing prices have remained stagnant for 40 years. Consumers prefer new houses over old houses very heavily, and with the addition of new earthquake proof regulations, the price of houses generally depreciate rather than appreciate.
I've also seen Japan described as living simultaneously 30 years in the future and 30 years in the past.
They've been living in the year 2000 since the 80s
Japan has been in the year 2000 since the 80s up to now.
Plenty of countries are big, rich in resources and yet very poor. Think of the DRC. At the same time there are plenty of super wealthy countries that have little natural resources. Like Switzerland or Singapore.
I think Japan is usually considered weird because it has almost zero inflation for a long period which is rather unique among the first world.
China's progress is truly impressive
Not a fan of the CCP but I guess they know what they're doing
International trade has lifted billions out of poverty
If the answer is “international trade” and not the actions of the Chinese government, why is China leaping ahead whilst India continues to languish in poverty?
India has a very protectionist economy. I will admit that there are other factors. China had a strong central government as well as governors and mayors that were solely focused on development. India has governors and mayors that are focused on tribal politics.
China is quite a protectionist economy too. Part of the benefit for them, of the firewall, is that it means that the market is filled with Chinese companies that would otherwise be uncompetitive. Baidu instead of Google, WeChat instead of everything, etc. China also required all foreign companies initially when coming in during reforms to partner with local companies.
Protectionist policies are fairly common though, you see countries often try to protect their domestic economies. Why do you think South Korea banned Twitch and has restrictions on Google Maps? Even if it comes at a slight harm to consumers, it may be worth it if it supports a real domestic sector. India’s issues are more related to other problems like severe corruption, lack of universal literacy, conflict between cultures, political groups, etc.
The U.S. has tons of protectionism measures like agricultural subsidies, patent and copyright rule enforcement, rules of origin, though health standards are… questionable. Or checks are.
The very key difference is China's protectionism is actually focused on China as a whole long term. China being so far ahead on rare earth minerals, for example, is due to decision making in the early and mid 2000s.
The US focuses on benefit for US only in so far as it benefits corporations and maintains certain foreign policies (Israel, contain China, etc). Also the US has lots of infighting between alphabet agencies, elected administration, and corporations.
India meanwhile is extremely corrupt so their decision makers focus almost exclusively on personal gain, which actually significantly hinders development.
I think the stable dictatorship also allow for proper long term planning as well. They could make a plan that will fucked up the country for 5 years, then yield beautiful fruit in 20 years.
In democratic country, no one would dare to do that. It would be career ending move, while handing the goods to the opposition to swoop in and replace it.
To my knowledge, South Korea never banned twitch, Twitch had to leave SK because SK allows ISPs to charge companies based on the bandwidth used for those companies, and streaming uses a ton of bandwidth so it just wasn’t feasible for Twitch.
While the South Korean ISPs own their own streaming services, iirc. So the domestic platforms like Afreeca etc are essentially a free ride in comparison.
https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2023/12/05/an-update-on-twitch-in-korea
alright say what you want but wechat is the goated software. Yeah government will get all your info but they already do? I honestly wouldn't mind having a hub for that in the US so you don't gotta be connecting with people on instagram snapchat facebook texting tiktok and 50 different apps all at the same time. Baidu sucks.
So it IS because of actions made by the Chinese state and not just "international trade"
Both are true. China had used the opportunity the open trade provided to reinvest into homeland economy, India didn't do it anywhere close to the same extent and instead a lot of smaller officials used it to fight their rivals. It's not something the Chinese state could have just done without the opportunity afforded, they just actually capitalized on it
I posit that Richard Nixon single-handedly lifted a billion Chinese out of poverty. /s
India liberalized to trade about a decade later and reforms have been slower due to it being a diverse democracy. India has grown 10x in the last 30 years and is continuing to grow relatively fast.
India only grew six times in the last 30 years after adjusting for inflation (equivalent to 6% annual growth rate).
Growing 10 times in 30 years would require an average growth rate of 8% over 30 years, which India has not accomplished.
On what basis?
Either way, it's weird to adjust for inflation but then not apply a PPP factor. Indian gdp per capita PPP has definitely increased 10x since the 90s.
Indians dog piling your comment lmao
China was in it for the long game. Be way cheaper than the next thing. People will be laughing but still buying. Eventually they will stop laughing and realise they can't buy elsewhere at scale and that's when China has the last laughter as it uses your past greed to blackmail you into submission at any moment..
So many Indians in the replies trying to whitewash India then moment you mentioned "India"
International trade is only one part of the equation. They’ve also had massive state-directed capital investment, strong competition policy, and leveraged their large labor force to obtain the intellectual property necessary for high-value industries.
It's like an enlightened dictatorship through democratic committee. The party members who rise due so in large part due to their proven ability in administration. And the party is wary of pissing off the population for fear of a revolution, just like with an enlightened monarchy.
So it's like an enlightened meritocratic autocracy.
The government learned from its mistakes and pivoted from them instead of doubling down.
Reading Marx unironically makes you a better capitalist because you actually understand what you're doing, unlike the Western capitalists who are destroying the economy every five years
I used to listen some years ago, that in the 80's the people believed that Japan were living in the 2000.
Well, it's 2025 and Japan got stuck in the 2000...
In 1995, Japan’s economy was larger than all of Asia combined. Fast forward to today, and its GDP is now smaller than just four Chinese provinces — Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Fujian.
How many people live in the 4 Chinese provinces?
The four provinces have about 215 million inhabitants. Japan 123 million
Yeah, those 4 provinces are economic powerhouses. Definitely a well-to-do and educated part of China.
It doesn't even have their biggest province by GDP either just to put in perspective. It's crazy.
Yeah they don't include Shandong, Beijing Area and Guandong
Approximately 218 million people. Almost twice the population of Japan
And how much of Chinas economic worth do they equate to. Those four look like the powerhouses of China.
China's GDP is 19.39 trillion. So these provinces, using the data provided in the image, are 24.5% of China's economy.
Fair enough.
The 4 provinces listed are ranked 2, 9, 4, and 8 in terms of GDP/province (out of 31 total provinces). In that order from top to bottom on the map.
The top 4 provinces are Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and Zhejiang. Total GDP in USD 6.6 Trillion about 2 Trillion higher than the sum of the 4 listed on the map.
It’s missing some powerful regions like Guangdong and a lot of the central regions though.
That’s less about Japan’s decline and more about China’s insane economic growth.
Better context would be to say that in 1995, China’s GDP was 750 Billion USD, barely scraping into the top 10 in the world.
By 2025, China’s GDP is 18.7 trillion USD. In 30 years it grew by 2300%. That’s just insane and frankly Japan’s “economic shift” isn’t the story here.
Japan should have a $10 trillion economy today. It has just a little under half the population of the US and per capita its GDP used to be higher than that of the US.
Why “should” it have a $10Tn economy? That would mean it should be double the size of Germany on an island nation with several large mountainous regions and nothing like the same kinds of resources and useable land.
The two largest economies in the world are, unsurprisingly, two of the largest countries physically. More land supports a larger population and supports larger industry. More land also means more diverse resources available, so you don’t need to trade externally for them as much.
Japan: 378km2, 123m pop
Germany: 357km2, 83m pop
It being an island is true, but it’s very large and populous ahead of DE on both counts.
If you know anything about the Japanese economic bubble you would know that Japan was never supposed to have a 5.5 trillion economy in 1995
Now compare it with the rest of Asia, excluding China.
Well, the Four Asian Tigers (South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan) were hailed as potential mini-Japans back when Japan was at its apex. Now the four combined are about as big as Japan economically and all four have higher GDP per capita.
In other words, Japan has joined a very exclusive club of former Colonial powers that actually got surpassed by former colonies in economic prosperity. Britain is the only other unambiguous member of that club. Possibly with France and Portugal as edge cases.
I think this is less about Japan's economic "downturn", but more so China's exponential economic rise.
Japan have stagnated heavily because of societal mistakes so it’s both.
There is some nuance to this:
GDP can go up just because the population is growing and more infrastructure is being built
To really compare how developed countries are and how well their people are doing, it makes more sense to look at GDP per capita rather than total GDP
Is there a measurment that accounts for cost of living and quality of life?
Closest probably is GDP PPP per capita
Gdp ppp accounts for cost of living, but not really quality of life
PPP for cost of living and HDI for quality
HDI and GINI for QoL together
Or just index by quality of life/purchasing power. I live in California with a huge GDP but the benefits don’t trickle down in terms of infrastructure, progress, or quality of life to most people. Rent and real estate is unaffordable and quality of life hasn’t changed that much despite GDP increasing dramatically.
Even then, GDP per capita does not measure wealth inequality, access to healthcare, etc...
If me and my neighbor stop mowing our own lawns and decide to mow each other's lawn but charge $1000 each then the GDP of lawn mowing goes from $0 to $2000 with no production change.
GDP has lots of problems in measuring wealth.
misleading title. Japan's economy may have shrunk, but the real story is the massive growth of China's economy to 19 Trillion.
the guy who made the top map really dont know where asia ends
The real story here isn't Japan, it's China.
I think a lot of people are really underestimating how dominant China is going to be in the coming decades. They still have a ton of room for growth.
A ton is an understatement
China's GDP per capita is only around $13,000 right now
If it "only" reaches the GDP per capita of say Spain, which is almost 3x of China's, that means China's total GDP will be around $60 trillion by that time, assuming the same population
There's still MASSIVE room for China to grow
Spain catching strays here.
I know we are talking about it being a stagnated country, but Spain has a higher GDP per capita than Japan
If China had the same GDP per capita as the US, they would have a GDP of 127.1 trillion usd, to give an idea earths GDP is 117 trillion
I was in China just this last month, everything is so unbelievably cheap that it is obvious China devalues it's currency by a ridiculous amount. They do it to make their exports more competitive, but exports are only like 15% of their economy.
I was in Xi'an, where the terracotta warriors were found, a major tourist attraction city, and you can get a 4 star hotel room for $15 a night, yes that's fifteen dollars, I did not miss a 0. A $2 Didi (their Uber) ride is enough to take you anywhere in the city, up to an hour of driving (all the cars are electric and super nice). Those same fancy techy EVs sell for under $20k. A whole roasted leg of lamb at a decent restaurant is $12 and you don't even get the option to tip. You get a McD's burger for $1 and it's better quality and has more meat in it than any McD's I've had in the States. A big cup of bubble tea is also $1, hell I'm sure I would die of diabetes had I stayed there for another month. It's like everything is priced similar to what you would see here in USD, except it's in RMB and the exchange rate is 1:7.
Depends on the the time it will take. China has a big problem with the population, too. They have too many old people in 3-4 decades, too. The one-child-policy will be probably a curse in some time. Also they have a big male surplus.
One child policy hasnt been a thing for a while, but it is true that China will be dealing with the consequences of that law for decades to come
One child policy just brings the fertility crisis earlier, they already ended that policy for a decade and now promoting for more babies but ppl just don’t wanna reproduce, and it’s a common problem for East Asian countries, China experienced this a generation earlier due to policy intervention, but even without this policy, it would have followed the same path just like Korea, Japan and Taiwan did.
While the one child policy was very bad policy and definitely had an effect on the demographics of their country, it was not as bad as they originally thought. There is a not so insignificant portion of their population that are effectively undocumented because their parents hid their children from the government, mostly women.
It's not going to mean much when their population inevitably shrinks from the low birth rates and low immigration
Yeah Japan’s population hasn’t grown in 30 years.
What too much anime does to a mf
Wait till you see the PPP numbers
Reminds me of when I told my aunt that my best remote jobs came from China, and she said, "Oh, but isn't that a poor country?" Must have been thinking of 40 years ago.
This is less about Japan and more about China.
I think this is more about China’s rapid development and less about any Japanese decline
Cool. By another marker, GDP per capita, Japan is around 3 times higher than China.
True, but they were 100 times higher than China just a few decades ago.
Catch up effect
In 1995 Japan's GDP per capita was 75x China's, now it's 2.44x. Impressive if you ask me.
OK,let’s make japan great again
Just for reference, these aren't the four highest provinces in China. Guangdong is 1 or 2 and Shandong is 3 or 4. Shanghai would only be like 8-10.
Only due to population, though, as it is less than a third the size of those provinces by population. Per capita it's probably #1 in China.
Or conversely - China is finally catching up to Japan.
They've done a bit more than catch up
When one country is the entire worlds production hub, this is not that weird. Its also fucking stupid. The dependence is insane.
The Japanese? Those sandal-wearing goldfish-tenders?
I need to know how China got so advanced so quickly it’s truly fascinating
China makes about 30% of all man made products. That's pretty massive when you really think about it...
It’s cuz China got their own red light district now
The fall of Japan is truly one of the most interesting economic phenomenon of our time.
A country that was more or less the world's second superpower after the fall of the USSR and just a blink of an eye later, they've just...stalled out and gotten left behind.
Not really. They've gone from a population of 123 million in 1990 to a population today of....123 million...
When you factor in that during that time the 65+ population has gone from 12% to 30%, it's not surprising that despite productivity increases, the overall economy has stagnated. The same will happen to China in the coming years with their terrible birthrate.
They got ahead because they focused on technology and innovation. Then the aging population, middle management and bureaucracy caught up and their innovation just kind of stopped. China and rest of world kept on, and grew exponentially while Japan just stagnates. I joke around that Japan has been living in 2010 since 1980, meaning they were advanced for 1980 and 1990, but today is 2025 and they are still living in 2010.
Theres not even a fall. They got to where they needed to be and just decided to stay put. Then the armchair economists are like damn Japan could have all had ferraris if only they did certain things right! Now all they have is traditional family dynamics, affordable housing, low inflation (until a few years ago), a for life job, universal healthcare system, low crime, and public transport. How do they get by everyday?!?? How do they fall asleep at night?!?!
Meanwhile other economies near japan still face falling birthrates and high suicide rates. They can do better in departments but none of it is directly related to economics.