Target $18.72, page-2977

China is far from having a worker shortage, those who need to look after relatives can't do so with empty wallets. They have built skyscraper cities that no one lives in simply to keep the flood of immigrants from rural areas employed. Much of their factory labour is unskilled. The downfall of previous Chinese dynasties has been attributed to men with no economic prospects rising up out of frustration. Chinas very survival is contingent on keeping its people employed. Generally, it would be one family member looking after multiple older relatives in the countryside while the working age male goes to a city and sends his paycheque back to keep them fed. It is a sort of family run nursing home system.

You can see what is happening already with Chinas COVID lockdowns. They are locked indoors and usually cannot work. Unrest is already happening as a result.

Opening up and allowing these people to work has its own challenges. It would cause energy prices to rise significantly which would likely put many factories out of business and evidently put them in the same situation, having a large percentage of people with no job prospects and only the government to blame.

They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are trying to balance things out, but it seems that any which way they turn it gives them problems. Then there is the Taiwan situation which could see China heavily sanctioned, which again, would lead to huge unemployment and market disruption ultimately leading to similar but more extreme unrest as we see today. Taiwan is like a fight that will cost them a bruised ego if they don't stand up and claim it as their own, or they suffer and get beat in a very physical sense if they do fight for it and get sanctioned in the process.

CCP is extremely vulnerable to sanctions as much of their energy is imported, especially oil through the south China sea. They are much more vulnerable to sanctions than Russia despite their much larger economy. It would be very easy to cut off oil and food imports into China which would leave it to destroy itself from the inside out.