But also isn’t China half way through its industrial revolution, with still a massive rural population almost living in the previous century? Are there other examples of countries that stalled in that process and the political consequences of a two tier population?
The rural labour pool is running pretty low at this point, it’s mostly just kids growing up and going to work in the cities rather than actual untapped capacity. Of course given China’s scale that’s still millions of workers looking for jobs every year. I’d say at this point China is very much an industrialised country with a young but burgeoning domestic economy.
Wages for manufacturing workers have been rising steadily as a result though and low value manufacturing that relies on the lowest wages is moving on to places like Vietnam. It’s still pretty rough out in the countryside, my wife is Chinese and I’ve been out in the countryside, but it is getting better.
