Peter Zeihan

And when the statisticians in Shanghai went and looked back at everything, they're like, okay.

Here's the problem.

In a first world country, there are dozens, hundreds of touch points where the government becomes convinced that you're a real person.

Your mom goes to neonatal.

You're born.

Every immunization, matriculation for every grade level.

You pay taxes.

You get your driver's permit.

You get your driver's license.

There's thousands throughout your lifetimes.

The first three in China, not birth, because until recently, not all Chinese were born in hospitals.

The first one was when you get a single battery of immunizations at some point around six months old.

What they discovered was that the doctor who was giving the shots got paid per shot.

So the doctors lied about the number of shots that they got.

The second point is when you enroll in kindergarten.

Local governments get subsidies from the federal system based on how many students matriculate.

So the local governments lied about that.

The third point is when you pay national taxes for the first time, which is typically 17, 18, 19, unless you switch to tertiary education, then it's 21, 22, 23.

So you get to calendar year 2024.

And the Chinese realize that the children that they thought started to be born in the late 1990s were never born at all.