The Chinese people have long been a superstitious nation. Typically, this manifests as a firm belief in a single idea or outcome, to the exclusion of all others. There is a prevailing notion that if one aspect changes or proves effective, everything else will naturally improve. Unfortunately, while some are now able to view the future with objectivity and hold fast to broader, long-term visions, such individuals remain few. It is increasingly evident that reality does not conform to such simplistic expectations. Indeed, many of the challenges China faces are intergenerational in nature, with implications that will span the next hundred years.
Among these long-term issues, I believe there are at least four major challenges that will become increasingly prominent.
The first is population decline. People form the foundation of any society and economy. Without them, a nation is merely an empty shell. In such a scenario, development, consumption, and economic growth become unattainable, and the rejuvenation or greatness of a country becomes impossible, as all of these rest fundamentally on the presence and well-being of its people. China faces the grim reality that the elderly are growing older, and the young are becoming fewer. The burden of elderly care will become a serious problem, with many older individuals left without adequate support, sometimes even leading to tragic outcomes. Meanwhile, the younger generation, often raised in overprotective environments, may excel only in examinations but lack essential life skills. They may depend heavily on their parents while remaining detached from society's realities, yet they are expected to shoulder increasingly heavy responsibilities. Such a situation is bound to be both sobering and disheartening.
Population is only one aspect of the broader challenges related to people. Other critical issues include education, individual capability, scientific and technological advancement, and the constructive or destructive forces shaping societal development. Restoring China's population and human capital to a balanced and healthy state may indeed take a century. This is inherently an intergenerational issue, one that will inevitably be a persistent obstacle to social development, making the realization of any grand vision either extremely difficult or virtually unattainable.
In this regard, beyond patiently awaiting the slow recovery of the population, there are few viable solutions. As ANBOUND warned over a decade ago, it takes not only time for the population to grow, but it also requires years of nurturing and development.
The second issue is resource depletion. On the surface, China appears to be a vast land rich in natural resources, seemingly abundant in everything. However, the reality is that decades of rapid development have significantly altered the country's landscape, and China is increasingly facing the stark reality of resource exhaustion, an issue that remains insufficiently acknowledged in current development discourse. From a developmental perspective, resources should be understood in a broad sense. They include not only tangible, material resources but also intangible or virtual ones. Nevertheless, all are essential to sustained development. Since the beginning of the reform and opening-up era, China has shifted from being an energy exporter to becoming a net energy importer. Despite reports of "record harvests" year after year, China is also the world's largest grain importer, and it has been so for consecutive years. Although China has made significant advancements in science and technology, many of the country's major technological achievements are underpinned by the contributions of large numbers of overseas-educated students. This reflects China's deep reliance on external educational and technological resources.
Over the past several decades, China has largely exhausted its usable land, mineral resources, capital, and labor under the banner of economic development. Looking ahead, the country's dependence on resources, both domestic and international, will only intensify. Already, China is compelled to purchase large oil fields abroad and acquire substantial tracts of overseas farmland to secure energy supplies and sustain food production. Even in the field of artificial intelligence, progress is being built upon foreign foundational models. China remains reliant on external biotechnology and pharmaceutical innovations to maintain essential medical supplies, including those needed to respond to infectious diseases. The severe shortage of fiscal resources is no longer a secret. Urban resource depletion is becoming increasingly evident, from industry and tax revenue to population levels. Collectively, these conditions suggest that resource scarcity and exhaustion will become long-term, structural issues and are likely to worsen over time. In a more severe scenario, China could, over the course of the next century, evolve into a "magnified version of Japan", facing chronic shortages in nearly every critical area, unless extraordinary individual and collective efforts are made to counterbalance the decline.
The third issue is cultural polarization. This phenomenon reflects a deep and often antagonistic divergence in values, norms, and identities, one that is largely rooted in uneven development. Economic and social imbalances have created disparities in cultural outlooks between regions, social classes, urban and rural populations, and even across generations. These tensions, though manifesting differently in each era, have persisted for millennia and have repeatedly served as sources of instability in Chinese history. In underdeveloped areas, there is often a populist zeal for redistributive justice, i.e., "robbing the rich to aid the poor", while more prosperous regions pursue more accumulation of wealth. Historically, such tensions have escalated into national upheaval, where rebellions ultimately plunged the country into widespread destitution. Only then was a kind of crude economic "equality" realized, with the temporary ending of regional fragmentation caused by nationwide poverty. Can this be remedied by ensuring a fairer distribution of national welfare? In theory, perhaps, yet improbable in practice. What constitutes "fairness", after all, is inherently subjective, a target that lacks a universally accepted standard. No matter how equitable a system strives to be, few will ever feel it has achieved genuine fairness. This makes cultural polarization a persistent and deeply embedded challenge. In contemporary China, everyday language is saturated with references to wealth; "rich" and "poor" are the implicit framework through which people interpret almost everything. This reveals a cultural condition in which economic status has become the dominant lens for understanding society.
The generational divide, too, has become commonplace in China today. The older generation often views young people as overly immersed in anime and video game subcultures, and therefore the younger generations are seen by the older ones as unserious, unmotivated, overly simplistic in their thinking, and lacking competence. In turn, younger people tend to see the older generation as overly paternalistic, out of touch, and insistent on outdated views. The result is a deep and visible generational rift, marked by mutual misunderstanding and lack of respect. It is important to recognize that China is not a society where mutual understanding comes easily. There is a cultural tendency to lack empathy and tolerance; the thought "this generation is not like us" is often used interchangeably with "they are not as good as us". Comparisons, or rather, social competition, are deeply ingrained in the culture. While this inclination to compare may seem harmless on the surface, its consequences can be serious. If someone feels they are not doing well, the reflex may be to hope that no one else is either, or at the very least, to make others appear unsuccessful as well.
China's urbanization has progressed at an exceptionally rapid pace. However, as many earlier warnings have suggested, its urbanization is quite distinct from that of other countries. Much of it has taken on a rural character, in what might be called the "ruralization" of cities. This outcome is largely the result of excessive speed coupled with a lack of cultural governance. The urban-rural divide is an old and persistent issue. Despite decades of development, China has struggled to resolve it effectively. Now, as this divide migrates from the countryside into the cities, can it naturally be transformed or overcome? In all likelihood, the answer is no.
In reality, cultural polarization functions as an underlying force that influences all aspects of society, though it manifests differently across various levels. Yet its presence and impact are undeniable. Naturally, there will always be dissenting views. In China, society is constantly filled with people striving to "reason with others", though typically this means demanding that others be reasonable, rather than reflecting on their own reasoning. This, too, is a cultural phenomenon. Regardless of differing opinions, it must be acknowledged that changing a culture is an extremely long-term undertaking, and one that does not always lead to success. The failure of the Cultural Revolution is, in fact, a historical testament to the limits of forced cultural transformation.
The fourth Issue is the economic quagmire that China is now facing. While the country has made remarkable progress over the past several decades and visitors today are often astonished by its transformation, the changes from past to present have not come without significant costs. These costs may include staggering levels of debt, massive inventories, overcapacity, and projects undertaken so far ahead of demand that they have little prospect of profitability. Even if the high-speed rail network is undeniably a magnificent achievement, it also carries an enormous financial burden, and that is over RMB 6 trillion in debt. This translates to more than RMB 4,300 of debt per Chinese citizen, a figure that is likely to continue rising. China's infrastructure development is visible everywhere and often visually impressive. However, all of it represents materialized debt, long-term obligations that will eventually need to be repaid. Since infrastructure requires ongoing operations and maintenance, as well as continued investment, the larger the scale of development, the greater the financial burden it imposes in the future. These mounting obligations constitute a heavy and enduring encumbrance, creating a vast, uncertain economic quagmire that looms ahead.
If such concerns are dismissed as exaggerations, one need only examine the challenge of urban renewal, specifically, the efforts to revitalize today's sprawling and often inefficient cities so they may once again embody urban vitality in the future. For many Chinese cities, this represents a formidable task, approaching the scale of "tearing down and rebuilding the whole thing". Locating the necessary resources to accomplish such a monumental task in the years ahead can be problematic, yet if these efforts are not undertaken, many cities, either in part or in whole, face a gradual decline into obsolescence or even abandonment. According to data from the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the number of natural villages in China declined from approximately 3.6 million to 2.7 million between 2000 and 2010, a reduction of around 900,000 villages within just a decade. Clearly, this trend continues to expand. Today, videos documenting so-called "ghost villages", "ghost towns", and even "ghost cities" are widespread across Chinese social media, reflecting a growing awareness of this unsettling phenomenon.
Therefore, if China aspires to achieve further development and transformation in the future, it must find a way to traverse this vast economic quagmire. The challenge, however, lies in the fact that this quagmire is extraordinarily difficult to overcome and will inevitably impose significant costs on future development. In the face of such risks or potential crises, there are, in truth, few effective solutions available. This is largely because the previous model of development was based on overextension and the front-loading of growth, an approach that, unsurprisingly, now manifests as structural problems and persistent obstacles.
Taken together, these four major issues represent intergenerational, supra-political, and deeply structural obstacles to social development, challenges that are profoundly objective in nature, long-lasting in impact, and extremely difficult to overcome. Over the next century, they may evolve into significant risks, crises, and structural barriers, with potentially severe and irreversible consequences. Any meaningful discussion of China's future development and any attempt to envision its long-term trajectory must begin with a comprehensive and objective social consensus on these issues. It must be acknowledged that all forms of development entail costs and trade-offs, and that these costs will inevitably have to be repaid in the future. Without such a foundational consensus, all visions for the future risk remaining illusory and uncertain. Grand ambitions may be formulated, but they are likely to falter midway and struggle to achieve long-term sustainability, as they ultimately exceed the fundamental capacities and constraints of the underlying social structure.
It is reasonable to believe that the next century in China will primarily be a period devoted to the painstaking construction of its "social software" that underpins long-term societal stability and development. China's hopeful future will ultimately depend on the success of this endeavor.
