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Yeah, the next decade is going to be interesting to watch.

In Taiwan, for instance, the working age population peaked just five years ago[1], so I doubt that the fact that their worker shortage is permanent and going to get worse has yet sunk in the brains of the management and political class in Taiwan.

Give it ten years, they might start understanding what's going on. Based on China's and Japan's responses, they'll have no idea what to do.

1. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/20-64...



Taiwan could import labour.


This is not and will never be an effective, sustainable solution.

It is akin to assuming that you can import soil after you have depleted your own. Human ecology matters as much as soil ecology does.


Cities have been importing population since the dawn of history. How sustainable do you want sustainable to be?


Folks have been importing top soil for a long time too. That doesn't mean that you get to be okay with soil erosion. Or for a better example, folks have been digging wells and building canals for agriculture for as long as civilization has existed. That doesn't mean you get to deplete your aquifers and natural reservoirs.

I want sustainable to be sustainable. Responsible societies should be able to maintain and improve the people that they have. Any people imported should be a supplementary augmentation, calculated for sustainable growth and improvement of the society as a whole. An augmentation, a supplement, is very different from a replacement. A replacement is what happens when you have the irresponsible depletion of human capital, and frankly, any immigrant should not want to go to a place where human capital is unsustainably depleted in such a way, as their own offspring are likely to receive the same treatment.




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