For me this was the most informational blog you've written. I appreciate this very much! This reaffirmed my theories, yet I also learned some new facets of the situation and you explained it all very logically. Your point about spoiled one-child princesses and princes is astounding! Well done.

Note I have a theory about Asian face. To grow rice requires a lot of human labor and coordination (water aqueducts, etc) unlike wheat or hunter gatherers. This requires extended families, tribes, and a lot of social harmony. Asians have very strong family and kinship ties and they depend very much on these. Whereas Westerners are willing to give the middle finger to their own families if necessary to rebel and make their mark. In short, Westerners take social risks that Asians do not. Another factor is the geographical isolation of Asia from invading armies (the mountains to the West of China and the Great Wall in the north). This lack of competition enabled Asia to become very stagnant. Japan is an isolated island. Ditto much of SE Asia.

Btw, it seems the potential solution to China's dilemma is to export its women and men. The expectations for men are less in other parts of the world, and there are a lot of Westerners with a house and car for Chinese women to aspire to. And Western men are typically handsome in that they are different, i.e. colored eyes, have a butt, larger bodies, etc.. Yet Westerners are not often conformists, so a Chinese female has to be willing to accept some radicalization but this may upset her applecart perspective too much, yet a bad boy image will appeal to the woman's hindbrain.

But China keeps insulating its people from the outside world. The corruption in your country won't allow external social networks to operate within your country. The Taipans copy the external social networks and then create captive markets by excluding the foreign competition. So it seems China is locking itself internally into failure.