China’s 1.4 Billion Market Is Nothing More Than an Illusion (2)
The point is this: under capitalism, even a country that grows remarkably in a given era represents, from a global perspective, only the “tip of the iceberg” — its core purchasing class is limited to a certain share of the world’s population.
| Era | Hegemonic power | Population | World population | Share of world population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1870s | Britain | 32 million | 1.3 billion | 2.5% (5.4% combined with the US) |
| 1950 | United States | 150 million | 2.5 billion | 6% |
| 1990 | Japan (bubble era) | 125 million | 5.7 billion | 6.5% (combined with the US) |
* All figures in the table above are approximate.
* US population in the 1870s: approx. 38 million
* US population in 1990: approx. 250 million
If China alone were to expand its core purchasing class from 400 million to 1.4 billion people, then even assuming a generous 8% share of world population, simple arithmetic implies a world population of roughly 17.5 billion would be required.
Yet the actual world population as of 2025 is only around 8.2 billion.
In short, there simply isn’t enough effective demand worldwide to lift China’s remaining one billion people into affluence.
Capitalism has its light and its shadow: like an iceberg, only a small number of the wealthy rise above the waterline, while a much larger mass remains submerged below it.
For this reason, the phrase “a market of 1.4 billion Chinese consumers” is, as a driver of economic growth through a core purchasing class, nothing more than an illusion.