Dr. Alan O'Sullivan

The replacement ratio, the pensioner support ratio, as we call it in Ireland, is declining significantly.

And there's a number of reasons for that.

We talked prior to the start of the interview about the urbanisation of China, but also he made an interesting point about Ireland.

Smaller countries can get away with this deficit in birth rates because we can just immigrate.

A couple of hundred thousand in Ireland solves the problem.

You need a couple of hundred million into China to solve the problem.

It's just a vast country.

So China now is looking at pouring lots of investment into AI to replace the productivity.

It's got debt problems for sure.

But you can't talk about China without talking about two things.

It's increased influence in the region.

and also its demographic problem in relation to productivity in the future.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

It's a complete reversal.

We've had a globalization for decades.

We're into deglobalization now, reshoring, countries, capital coming back to the Hong Kong basis.

We've also had a peace dividend.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Okay, people in Bosnia mightn't agree with that, but on mainland Europe, there was relative peace and in the Western world.

Well, that's all gone now.