Andrea Ferrario

The youth unemployment rate is estimated to be around 30 per cent. Those left without assistance are excluded from a system that primarily rewards inheritance. Debt has become a "structural condition" for access to education, employment, and housing. When banks close their doors, many end up in the hands of loan sharks. The result is a growing human cost in terms of suicides and malaise.

From dolls that have become a global phenomenon to large technology factories and the delivery sector, a system is increasingly spreading in China that relies on the ability to transform individual needs and family obligations into a virtually unlimited willingness to work. Women themselves are being pushed to abandon stable contracts (guaranteed only on paper) in favour of temporary and seasonal employment.

Only 17.5% of Japanese citizens currently hold a valid passport. This reflects not only the weakness of the yen but also the forced withdrawal of the younger generations. To combat this growing isolation, new solidarity initiatives are emerging, as well as corporate and technological responses. But the social framework remains stuck.

Over the past five years, Chinese loans and deposits in renminbi abroad have quadrupled, while CIPS (Beijing's alternative to SWIFT) is growing in Central Asia, the Middle East, and other strategic areas. But the plan remains China-centric, because to truly rely on a global currency, Beijing would have to give up control over capital flows, a choice Xi Jinping believes is incompatible with internal stability.

Informal employment is exploding in North Korea because of a drop in orders from China and lower wages. Tensions are also rising among the workers Kim supplies to China, fuelled by ever-increasing deductions from their wages to ensure revenue for the North Korean regime. Meanwhile, Russia has become North Korea’s new El Dorado, at a cost of extensive linguistic and cultural isolation for workers.

For decades, China has poured resources into the real estate sector, generating a colossal bubble. Now it is investing in high-tech, generating excess production capacity that does not really boost the economy. Millions of rural workers displaced by construction are unable to find work in innovative sectors that create little employment. The alternative would be to invest in the 900 million Chinese who live on ten dollars a day.