China's economy is bound to collapse.

China is an important topic to the world and this type of subject is very worthy of debate. I am a student of China, I speak the main language (Mandarin) and I have been married to a native for over decade. We will start will a little introduction and then address the points. China is the oldest of historical civilizations. It is the only civilization that was contemporary with the Pharaohs of Egypt that is still a viable society today. China has a 5000 year history of stunning successes with a few failures. It is by far, the most successful human society. Dr. Will Durant said the following of China in the late 1930s. Dr. Durant is one of the greatest historians the world has ever known. "No victory of arms, or tyranny of alien finance, can long suppress a nation so rich in resources and vitality. The invader will lose funds or patience before the loins of China will lose virility; within a century China will have absorbed and civilized her conquerors, and will have learned all the technique of what transiently bears the name of modern industry; roads and communications will give her unity, economy and thrift will give her funds, and a strong government will give her order and peace. " 1. The real estate market. It is very difficult to relate the Chinese real Estate market to the West. Land in China is not owned in the traditional sense. It is leased on a long term lease from the government. This is exactly the same system used to a certain extent in the UK for Crown lands and used in Hong Kong today. China, in addition, has a "hukou" system which severely limits where the Chinese citizen can own property. In addition, in many Chinese cities, people are only permitted to have a single property even if they have the hukou for the city in which they live. In spite of the explosive growth of Chinese cities in the last two decades, immigration to cities in China is still SEVERELY limited. The source that my opponent lists falls into exactly the same trap as others. The source assumes that China is just like the West and if people are not moving to the "Ghost cities" it is because they do not want to. This is nonsense. One single change of law from the Central government would fill those cities in a fortnight. China has much more control over their real estate market than Western countries have. A change to the hukou system alone, allowing "Country People" to move to cities, would cause a real estate boom that would last for a decade. As well, a change in the banking system, imposed from above, would also spark such a change. As a note, the existing downturn in the Chinese market is precisely because of such a change. The Chinese have seen three "bubble bursts" in Real estate in the last 8 years. All of which were simply corrections. . http://www.economist.com... 2. The demographics argument. China, due to its one child policy, has a very inverted demographic chart. However, the one child policy served a purpose. Were this debate to have been held in the 1970s, the argument would have been that China"s population was growing so fast that they could never support the number of Chinese who would be born in the future. Instead, it is estimated that this policy alone reduced the population of China by about 200 million from 1979 to 2009. This policy, for your information, is supported by 76% of the Chinese population. This shows the level of control that the Chinese are able to exert over their demographics. The government recently relaxed the one-child policy because of the demographic problem that my opponent references. . http://en.wikipedia.org... General Rebuttal Much of what is written about China"s economy starts with the assumption "the West"s way of doing economies is the RIGHT WAY. " My opponent"s second reference is a good example. Yet this is not at all obvious. Consider this from . http://www.theguardian.com... "As the international financial crisis has unfolded, there have been few starker contrasts than those between China, the US and the EU. Europe has combined loose monetary policy with little or no stimulus to the productive economy " the "austerity" approach. The result has been that the EU's economy shrank by 2% over four years " the UK's shrank by 4.4%. The US has combined loose monetary policy with a consumer stimulus delivered via the budget deficit. The result? The US economy has grown by 1.2% in four years. India, which followed the US model of a budget deficit delivering a consumer stimulus, saw its growth decline from 9.4% in the first quarter of 2010 to 5.3% in the first quarter of 2012. " China"s history both recently and ancient speaks against the idea, which seems to be mostly wishful thinking from the Western nations, that China"s economy is about to collapse.